American citizens pose for a photo at police headquarters in Port-au-Princ. In the front row from left to right are Carla Thompson, 53, of Meridien, Idaho, Laura Silsby, 40, of Boise, Idaho, Nicole Lark Ford, 18, of Middleton, Idaho, and in the back row left to right are Steve McMullen, 56, of Twin Falls, Idaho, Jim Allen, 47, of Amarillo, Texas, Silas Thompson, 19, of Twin Falls, Idaho, Paul Thompson, 43, and Drew Culborth, 34, of Topeka, Kansas
Via The Mail Online
A group of 10 American Baptists were being held in the Haitian capital today after trying take 33 children out of the country.
The church group, most of them from Idaho, allegedly lacked the proper documents when they were arrested on Friday night in a bus along with children from 2 months to 12 years old who had survived the catastrophic earthquake.
The group say they were setting up an orphanage across the border in the Dominican Republic.
‘In this chaos the government is in right now we were just trying to do the right thing,’ the group’s spokeswoman, Laura Silsby, told reporters at the judicial police headquarters in the capital, where the Americans were being held pending a Monday hearing before a judge.
The Baptists’ ‘Haitian Orphan Rescue Mission’ was described as an effort to save abandoned, traumatised children.
Their plan was to scoop up 100 youngsters and take them by bus to a 45-room hotel at Cabarete, a beach resort in the Dominican Republic, that they were converting into an orphanage.
Whether they realised it or not, these Americans – the first known to be taken into custody since the January 12 quake – put themselves in the middle of a firestorm in Haiti. Continue Reading….
Did these fools actually think it would be OK to take those children and stick them in an orphanage across the border without the appropriate documentation???
Plus the children who they attempted to smuggle out of the country, may have relatives who are desperately trying to find them.
As far as I am concerned these so-called “christians” are nothing but vultures swooping in to Haiti preying on the weak and distressed, particularly children.
Right now the children of Haiti are vulnerable to being preyed upon by child traffickers and paedophiles.
It’s been reported that US troops have beefed up security at the docks after reports children were being smuggled out to sea.
It has also been reported that UN teams are currently racing to find children being preyed on.
A Unicef spokesperson said, “As well as the health concerns and malnutrition concerns, we are now concerned unaccompanied children will be exploited by unscrupulous people who may wish to traffic them for adoption, the sex trade or domestic servitude.”
