Irish missionary among eight missing after gunmen storm orphanage
Her family say they are ‘absolutely devastated’
An Irish missionary is among eight people who are missing after gunmen stormed an orphanage in Haiti.
The attack is just the latest in an area controlled by a powerful array of armed gangs.
A three-year-old child is also among the missing following the incident, at the Saint-Hélène orphanage in Kenscoff.
The orphanage is run by the international charity Nos Petits Frères et Sœurs and cares for more than 240 children, according to its website.
Among those kidnapped early on Sunday was Gena Heraty, an Irish missionary who has worked in Haiti since 1993.
According to Irish media, Ms Heraty, who oversees the orphanage's special needs programme for children and adults, was assaulted in 2013 when people broke into the orphanage and killed her colleague.
Her family issued a statement saying they were “absolutely devastated” by Sunday's kidnappings.
“The situation is evolving and deeply worrying,” they said.
Sunday’s incident marked the latest high-profile kidnapping involving a foreign missionary.
In 2021, the 400 Mawozo gang kidnapped 17 missionaries from a US-based organisation in Ganthier, east of the capital, Port-au-Prince. The majority were held captive for 61 days.
Kenscoff is a once peaceful community in the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area.
The doors to the orphanage remained closed on Monday as Haiti’s Institute of Social Welfare and Research worked with UNICEF to identify sites where children and employees could be relocated.
No one has claimed responsibility for the kidnappings, which took place in an area controlled by a gang federation known as “ Viv Ansanm”. Earlier this year, the US designated it as a foreign terrorist organisation.
Simon Harris, Ireland’s deputy prime minister, said in a statement that the kidnappings of Ms Heraty and the others were “deeply worrying", and called for their immediate release.
In a past interview with the Irish Independent newspaper, Ms Heraty recalled being threatened with death when suspects broke into the orphanage in 2013.
“They were quite aggressive. One had a hammer, one had a gun,” she said.
Ms Heraty said her colleague was killed with a hammer after he rushed to help her and others.
“The last place you would expect a violent death to happen in Haiti would be in a house with special-needs people," she said.
"Life is just not fair. We know that. We just have to accept it.”
At least 175 people in Haiti were reported kidnapped from April to the end of June this year, with 37 per cent of those cases occurring in Port-au-Prince.
The United Nations said a majority of those kidnappings were blamed on the Grand Ravine and Village de Dieu gangs, which form part of the Viv Ansanm federation.