Photo: RICHARD PIERRIN / AFP / Getty Images
By: EFE
Wednesday, November 20
The US government received “proof of life” from the missionaries kidnapped in Haiti
WASHINGTON – The United States government has seen “evidence” that at least some of the 17 members of a group of missionaries and their families who were kidnapped twenty days ago in Haiti are still alive, a senior US official reported Friday.
“I know that we have received proof of life,” said the official, who requested anonymity, in a telephone press conference with a small group of media, including Efe.
The source did not specify if Washington has verified that all or only some of the kidnapped are still alive , of which 16 were American and one was Canadian, and he did not want to elaborate on that.
The group is in the hands of the band c riminal 400 Mawozo , one of the most dangerous of Haiti and which controls the district of Croix-des-Bouquets, where the past 16 captured the group of missionaries, including five children.
The White House has made it clear that will not negotiate with the captors, who ask for a ransom of $ 17 million dollars, one for each of the kidnapped, all of them belonging to the religious organization Christian Aid Ministries.
However, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has sent agents to Haiti to locate the hostages, and the White House has assured that it is evaluating “all possible options” to obtain his release.
At the headquarters that the Christian organization has in Haiti í, in the town of Titanyen, north of Port-au-Prince, they also have no news of the status of their co-religionists since they were captured, after visiting an orphanage on the outskirts of the capital on 16 October.
Kidnappings have become daily and indiscriminate in Haiti in recent months, although the victims are usually Haitian citizens and their captivity does not transcend as did this case, which has caused international commotion.
The latest kidnapping figures offered by the Center for Analysis and Research of Human Rights (CARDH) are at 747 abductions reported in Haiti from the beginning of the year to mid-October, the fortnight in which they were recorded 119 victims, which represents an exponential growth of this crime.
Haitians, immersed in a deep crisis of violence, are now focused on obtaining fuel, whose distribution was blocked for weeks by armed gangs , leaving activity in the country practically paralyzed, given its dependence on fuel to generate electricity.