Eight people, including a well-known Irish missionary and a three-year-old child, were reported missing after armed men stormed an orphanage in Haiti on Sunday, according to a report published by the Associated Press. The attack, the report said, took place in Kenscoff, a suburb of Port-au-Prince, an area increasingly plagued by violence from gang coalitions.
The victims include Gena Heraty, an Irish woman who has spent over 30 years working in Haiti. According to the report, she oversaw the Saint-Hélène orphanage, run by the international charity Nos Petits Frères et Sœurs, which cares for more than 240 children. Meanwhile, efforts were underway to relocate dozens of children and staffers to safer locations.
A Troubling Pattern of Missionary Kidnappings
Notably, Heraty was, during a 2013 attack on the same orphanage, threatened with death and had at the time witnessed the brutal murder of a colleague who tried to protect her.
“They were quite aggressive. One had a hammer, one had a gun,” Heraty told The Irish Independent in a past interview, while adding, “The last place you would expect a violent death to happen in Haiti would be in a house with special-needs people.”
No group has claimed responsibility for the Sunday kidnapping, the report said, adding that the area is under the control of a powerful gang alliance known as Viv Ansanm, which the US recently designated a foreign terrorist organization.
Ireland’s Deputy PM Calls Kidnapping ‘Deeply worrying’
Meanwhile, Ireland’s deputy prime minister Simon Harris called the kidnapping “deeply worrying” and urged for the hostages’ immediate release.
UNICEF and Haiti’s Institute of Social Welfare and Research are reportedly working together to provide the orphanage’s residents and staff with alternative shelter.
According to the UN estimates, at least 175 people were kidnapped in Haiti between April and June this year. Nearly 40% of those cases occurred in Port-au-Prince, and many are blamed on local gangs including Grand Ravine and Village de Dieu, both part of the Viv Ansanm network.
In 2021, 17 American missionaries, including five children, were kidnapped by the 400 Mawozo gang, the report further said, adding that most of the abductees were held for over two months.
