The infamous “400 Mawozo” Haitian gang has abducted 17 North American missionaries and their children.
The gang is demanding a ransom of $1 million for each hostage, according to Haitian Justice and Interior Minister Liszt Quitel. The gang leader, Wilson Joseph, has said that the victims will be executed if the ransom is not provided. Daily Mail reported Joseph, aka Lanmò San Jou or ‘Death Without Days,’ is wanted on numerous charges, including murder, attempted murder, kidnapping and auto theft.
The missionaries were abducted on Oct. 16 while traveling from an orphanage in the commune of Croix des Bouquets to the village of Titanyen, just north of the capital, Port-au-Prince.
“The group of sixteen US citizens and one Canadian citizen includes five men, seven women, and five children,” reads a statement from Christian Aid Ministries, the organization with which the missionaries are affiliated. The ages of the adults range from 18 to 48, while the children are aged eight months, three years, six years, 13 years, and 15 years. All of the kidnapped individuals belong to Amish, Mennonite, and other Anabaptist communities.
Quitel says that Haitian Police and FBI are heavily involved in the recovery of the missionaries, whose plight has shed global attention on the Caribbean’s gang violence epidemic. According to Haiti’s Center for Analysis and Research for Human Rights, the missionaries join several kidnapping victims approaching 800 in 2021 alone.
In recent months, the kidnappings have seen a spike, following Haitian president Jovenal Moïse’s assassination on July 7.
This abduction, in particular, has incited protests in Port-au-Prince, where the group is seen as a pillar of the community. “These missionaries do things for us that the government doesn’t,” an unnamed protester told CNN on Oct. 21. “We demand their release because these missionaries are everything to us.”
The gang’s threat follows a statement by the victims’ families, released on Christian Aid Ministries’ website on Oct. 21, thanking supporters for their prayers. The statement goes on to say that “God has given our loved ones the unique opportunity to live out our Lord’s command to, ‘love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you’ (Matthew 5:44).”
