The 12 members of the group of North American missionaries who were freed last Thursday after two months at the hands of a gang in Haiti escaped in the middle of the night, their religious organization said Monday.
On October 16, the group of Christian Aid Ministries, made up of seventeen people, including five children, was abducted after visiting an orphanage, west of the capital Port-au-Prince, in the heart of an area under the control of one of Haiti’s main gangs.
Five members of the group were released separately in November and December.
In mid-December, helped by the night, the group of the twelve remaining hostages, including a ten month old baby and a three year old child, “undoubtedly walked nearly 16 kilometers and crossed a thick forest, navigating between the brambles” for escape, Christian Aid Ministries spokesman Weston Showalter told an online press conference.
“We walked in the brambles for two hours, we were in gang territory,” said one of those who escaped, as quoted by the spokesperson.
On December 15, after several attempts, the group succeeded in breaking down the door behind which its members were being held captive and bypassing the attention of the guards. The adults hid water in their clothes, protected the baby in blankets and carried the other two young children to escape and walk through the forest, Weston Showalter said.
Hostages well treated
According to him, the hostages were not victims of violence during their confinement, and were fed, even though they drank contaminated water and suffered from hunger and lack of sleep.
Members of the 400 Mawozo gang, behind the kidnapping, demanded a million dollars per person held captive, according to information gathered by AFP.
The religious organization Christian Aid Ministries said it had raised money intended for ransom in order to continue negotiations, but declined to give further details, and the payment of any ransoms remains unknown.
In a video posted at the end of October on social networks, the leader of the armed gang threatened to execute the hostages.
Long confined to the poorest districts of the capital of this country mired in a deep political crisis and a spiral of violence, the gangs carry out their criminal activities with complete impunity. The Center for Human Rights Analysis and Research, an organization based in Port-au-Prince, has recorded at least 949 kidnappings since the start of the year.