Haitian building damaged during the quake that struck the country on January 12, 2010. It has been estimated that thousands have been killed and injured.
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos
Haiti could send US 'child-traffickers' home for trial
Will Pavia in Port-au-Prince and James Bone in New York
(Ben Gurr/The Times)
The American missionaries arrested and branded as “kidnappers” in Haiti originally planned to pick up orphans from the streets of the quake-ravage capital, according to a planning document.
The ten Americans stand accused of illegally transporting children out of Haiti after attempting to cross the border into the Dominican Republic in a bus loaded with 33 children, apparently without the required government authorisation.
The five men and five women remained in gloomy cells at the back of the police headquarters in Port-au-Prince yesterday, awaiting the decision of a judge.
Marie Laurence, the Haitian Minister for Culture and Communications, raised the possibility that they may face trial in the United States.
“Whether they will have to follow the process here in Haiti or to follow the process in the United States, it is for the judge to decide... based on the law in Haiti,” she said.
She added: “It appears that some of these children have mothers and fathers.”
Max Bellerive, Haiti’s Prime Minister, confirmed that not all the children were orphans. “It is clear now that some of the children have live parents,” he said. “And it is clear now that they knew what they were doing was wrong.”
The Idaho-based New Life Children’s Refuge had been planning to build an orphanage in neighbouring Dominican Republic, but swung into action when the earthquake hit Haiti.
“The number of Haitian orphans is estimated to have increased 300 per cent as a result of the catastrophic earthquake... Thousands of children have lost their parents, are are injured, hungry, thirsty and alone with limited chance of survival without help,” said a planning document posted on a church web-site.
The group launched a two-week “rescue mission” to save Haitian orphans “abandoned on the streets, makeshift hospitals or from collapsed orphanages” in Port-au-Prince and take them to a refuge set up in a rented 45-room hotel in the Dominican resort of Cabarete.
The document said the team would arrive in the Dominican Republic on January 22 and drive a bus into Port-au-Prince the following day.
The goal was to “gather 100 orphans from the streets and collapsed orphanages, then return to the DR”. The New Life Children Refuge was incorporated as a charity in November by two women — Laura Silsby, 40, who runs a personal shopper website, and her family’s nanny Charisa Coulter, 24 — who are members of the Central Valley Baptist Church in Meridian, Idaho.
The charity is dedicated to “rescuing, loving and caring for orphaned, abandoned and impoverished Haitian and Dominican children, demonstrating God’s love and helping each child find healing, hope, joy and new life in Christ.”
Five of the 10 arrested are members of the 500-strong congregation at Central Valley Baptist Church and at least three are members of the East Side Baptist Church in Twin Falls, Idaho, also part of the Southern Baptist Convention, America’s largest Protestant denomination.
“We came here literally to just help the children. Our intentions were good,” Ms Silsby said from detention. “We wanted to help those who lost parents in the quake or were abandoned.” The group was in the process of buying land to build a 200-child orphanage, school and church in Magante on the north coast of the Dominican Republic.
After the earthquake, the missionaries decided they could not wait. “Given the urgent needs from this earthquake, God has laid upon our hearts the need to go now vs. waiting until the permanent facility is built,” the planning document said.
The rented 45-room hotel was intended to provide a shelter for up to 150 children, from infants to 12-year-olds.
Missionaries budgeted $620 each for air-fares - $220 from Boise, Idaho to Las Vegas, and $400 from Las Vegas to the Dominican Republic - and appealed for donations to help play the estimated $1,800 to charter a bus in the Dominican Republic.
The mission also asked for tax-deductible donations of medical supplies, nappies, children’s clothing, toys, 90 twin-sized beds and other supplies.
"We will strive to also equip each child with a solid education and vocational skills as well as opportunities for adoption into a loving Christian family,” the planning document said.
The group eventually took the children from the custody of Haitian pastor Jean Sanbil of the Sharing Jesus Ministries. It insists it paid no money for them.
Drew Ham, the assistant pastor at Central Valley Baptist Church, said the 25-year-old church had conducted missions in Haiti before but none setting up an orphanage.
No comments:
Post a Comment