The 12 American missionaries who were still in captivity after a group of 17 people were kidnapped by an armed gang in Haiti on Oct. 16 were released on Thursday, two months after the kidnapping, an NGO said.
“Yes, the information is confirmed. They were released this morning,” he told the Efe Gédéon Jean, director of the Haitian Center for the Analysis of Human Rights Research (CARDH).
The Haitian National Police also confirmed the release of missionaries from the Christian Aid Ministries religious congregation. After two months of kidnapping, the group was released on Thursday, confirmed to Efe the spokesman for the Haitian National Police, Gary Desrosiers.
Two members of the group were released on Nov. 21 and three others on Nov. 5, although their identities were not revealed for security reasons.
The kidnapped group consisted of 17 people, 16 of whom are American and one Canadian, including five children.
The missionaries were kidnapped by the 400 Mawozo armed group in the Croix-des-Bouquets area, a slum outside Port-au-Prince, as they were returning home by bus after visiting an orphanage in the Ganthier region, near the Haitian capital.
The kidnappers asked for a ransom of US$17 million, US$1 million for each of those kidnapped and, according to CARDH, they also demanded the release of one of their leaders, who is serving a sentence in the National Penitentiary.
Indiscriminate kidnappings have become common in Haiti, but it is not common for hostages to spend two months in captivity, as happened in the case of the American group.
CARDH has counted 949 kidnappings so far this year, including 55 foreigners from five countries.
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