VATICAN (CNS): “This new case is a reflection of the collapse of the security apparatus of the state and the country. No one seems to be safe anymore,” Redemptorist Father Renold Antoine told Fides, the news agency of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples, from Haiti on April 12.
The latest victims of rampant kidnappings in the country—the poorest in the Americas—are five priests, two nuns and three laypeople who were abducted in the town of Croix-des-Bouquets, while on their way to a parish near the capital of Port-au-Prince early on April 11.
Kidnappings—whch have increased over the past few months—happen almost daily in Haiti, which has been experiencing mounting insecurity, political turmoil and gang violence; it is the poorest country in the Americas.
“Outlawed groups continue to sow fear and sadness in the hearts of the population,” Father Antoine said.
Local sources confirmed with Fides that the kidnapped included four priests from the Priestly Society of St. Jacques,; a priest of the Archdiocese of Cap-Haïtien; a member of the Sisters of Providence of Pommeraye; a family friend and three relatives of another priest, who was not captured. The relatives included his aunt, a member of the Little Sisters of the Child Jesus.
Father Ludger Mazile, secretary of the Haitian Bishops’ Conference, told Agence France Presse on April 12 that the kidnappers had demanded a ransom of US$1 million ($7.77 million) for the group’s release.
The Conference of Haitian Religious issued a statement expressing its “deep regret” over the latest kidnapping, but also its “anger at the inhumane situation we have been going through for more than a decade,” Fides reported.
Bishop Pierre-André Dumas of Anse-à-Veau et Miragoâne, vice president of the bishops’ conference, told AFP, “This is too much. The time has come for these inhuman acts to stop.”
The bishop said, “The Church prays and stands in solidarity with all the victims of this heinous act.”
