Eight people, including Irish missionaries and three-year-olds, remained missing Monday after raiding orphanages in Haiti, the latest attack in an area controlled by a powerful collection of armed gangs.
Authorities have scrambled dozens of children and staff to relocate from the Saint-Hélène Orphanage run by Nos Petits Freres et Squers, an international charity with Mexican and French offices. According to its website, the orphanage cares for more than 240 children.
Among those invited early on Sunday was Jenna Heratie, an Irish missionary who has been working in Haiti since 1993 and oversaw the special needs programme for children and adults orphanages. She was assaulted in 2013 when the suspect broke into an orphanage and killed a colleague, according to Irish media.
Her family issued a statement saying that it was “absolutely devastated” by the invitation on Sunday. “The situation has evolved and I’m deeply concerned.”
Sunday marked the latest famous invitations involving foreign missionaries. In 2021, the 400 Mauzo gang invited 17 missionaries, including five US-based children in Gantier, east of the capital. Most were taken prisoner for 61 days.
Sunday’s invitation took place in Kenskoff, a once peaceful community in the Porto Princes metropolitan area. The door to the orphanage remained closed Monday as Haiti’s Institute of Social Welfare and Research worked with UNICEF to identify locations where children and employees could move.
No one has argued responsibility for the invitation in an area managed by a gang federation known as “Viv Ansanm.” This year, the US designated it as a foreign terrorist organization.
Ireland’s deputy prime minister, Simon Harris, in a statement, said in a statement that Herati and the others’ invitations were “deeply worried” and called for their immediate release.
In a previous interview with Ireland’s Independent Newspaper, Heraty recalled that in 2013 the suspect was threatened with death when he invaded the orphanage.
“They were very aggressive. One had a hammer and a gun,” she said. Heratie says her colleague was killed with a hammer after rushing to help her colleagues and others.
“The last place where violent deaths are expected to occur in Haiti will be in a home with people with special needs,” she said. “Life is not fair. We know that. We have to accept it.”
At least 175 people in Haiti were reportedly tempted from April to the end of June this year, with 37% of these cases occurring in Port-au-Prince.
The United Nations said the majority of these enticements were condemned by the Gangs of Deeu, the Grand Valley and villages that form part of the Viviansam Federation.
