Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Oct. 19 (BNA): A protest strike has shut down businesses, schools and public transportation in a new blow to Haiti’s weak economy, and unions and other groups vowed to continue the shutdown Tuesday, angry at the upsurge in crime. While authorities try to rescue 17 kidnapped members of a US-based missionary group.
FBI agents and other US officials are helping Haitian authorities search for 12 adults and five children associated with Ohio’s Christian Aid ministries who were kidnapped Saturday during a trip to an orphanage.
It is the largest reported kidnapping of its kind in recent years, with Haitian gangs becoming increasingly emboldened and kidnappings growing as the country attempts to recover from the July 7 assassination of President Jovenel Moise and a 7.2 magnitude earthquake that struck southern Haiti on August 14. More than 2,200 people have been killed, according to the Associated Press (AP).
“We are calling on the authorities to take action,” said Jean-Louis Abaki, a moto taxi driver who joined the strike on Monday to denounce the killings and kidnappings in the hemisphere’s poorest country.
With the usually chaotic and largely empty streets of the Haitian capital quiet, Abaki said that if Prime Minister Ariel Henry and National Police Chief Leon Charles wanted to stay in power, “they must give residents a chance for security”.
Haitian police told the Associated Press that the kidnapping of 16 Americans and Canadians was carried out by the Mauzu 400 gang, a group with a long record of murder, kidnapping and extortion.
In April, a man who claimed to be the leader of the gang told a radio station that it was responsible for the kidnapping of five priests, two nuns and three relatives of a priest that month. They were later released.
A report released last month by the United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti said at least 328 kidnappings were reported to the Haitian National Police in the first eight months of 2021, compared to a total of 234 kidnappings for the whole of 2020.
The gangs were accused of kidnapping students, doctors, police officers, bus passengers and others as their power grew and demanded ransoms ranging from a few hundred dollars to millions of dollars.
Ned Price, a spokesman for the US State Department, said US officials have been in constant contact with the Haitian National Police, the missionary group and relatives of the victims.
“This is something we have been dealing with with the highest priority since Saturday,” he said, adding that officials are doing “everything we can to find a quick resolution to this matter.”
UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the escalation of gang violence had affected relief efforts in Haiti. He said that the UN Resident Coordinator and Humanitarian Coordinator reported that “violence, looting, road closures and the continued presence of armed gangs all pose obstacles to humanitarian access. The situation is further complicated by the serious shortage of fuel and the low supply of goods.”
Dujarric said the Haitian government should redouble its efforts to reform and strengthen the police department to deal with public safety and that all crimes should be investigated.
Christian Aid Ministries said the kidnapped group included six women, six men and five children, including a two-year-old girl. A sign installed on the door of the organization’s headquarters in Berlin, Ohio, stated that it was closed due to the kidnapping case.
The pastor told the Detroit News that among the kidnapped were four children and one of their parents is from a Michigan family. Minister Ron Marks, who declined to be identified, said the youngest family member was under 10. He said they arrived in Haiti earlier this month.
The organization’s headquarters on Monday stopped two Christians traveling with two children to deliver packages to poor countries. Tirza Raric, who is of California descent, said she and one of her friends prayed on Sunday with relatives among the abductees.
“Although it is painful and tearful because our friends and relatives, dear brothers and sisters, are now suffering in a very real physical, mental and emotional way, it is comforting for us to carry such heavy burdens to the God we adore.”
News of the kidnappings spread quickly in and around Holmes County, Ohio, which is the center of one of the largest concentrations of Amish and conservative Mennonites in the country, said Marcus Yoder, executive director of the Amish and Mennonite Heritage Center in nearby Millersburg, Ohio.
Christian assistance services are supported by Mennonite conservatives, Amish and related groups in the Anabaptist tradition.
The organization was founded in the early 1980s and began operating in Haiti later that decade, said Stephen Nolte, professor of history and baptismal studies at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania. He said the group has year-round employees in Haiti and several countries, and ships religious, school and medical supplies worldwide.
Conservative Anabaptists, while disagreeing on technology and other issues, share traditions such as modest dress, casual dress, detachment from mainstream society, closely disciplined gatherings and a belief in non-resistance to violence.
The Amish and Mennonite communities in Holmes County are closely associated with the missionary organizations serving Haiti.
Each September at a Benefit Auction in Ohio Haiti, handcrafted furniture, quilts, firewood, and tools are sold, and roast chicken, beans, and Haitian rice are grilled. Aaron Miller, one of the organizers, said the event typically brings in about $600,000 divided into 18 missionary groups.
RAE