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Columbus-based evangelist couple were among nine held by members of the Sangin clan accused of assaulting first victim and robbing others
Two missionaries who had been held in an unknown location in Haiti have been released.
“I want to thank the Haitian community and faith-based communities in the United States and throughout the world for their prayers,” Kevin Lawson, pastor of the Bible Church in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, told CNN on Sunday night.
“It’s a very emotional night.”
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The missionaries, from the Columbus-based Resonate Worldwide church, and a Jamaican pastor were part of a group of 16 to 20 people who were kidnapped and held captive in January after leaving a bus stop. The others were not hurt.
They had been abducted after arriving in the small town of Sangin, near the Dominican Republic, to visit Haitian children under the care of American missionaries. The group had been in Sangin for two days when the victims were abducted.
The American and Jamaican missionaries were arrested on 16 January when they tried to leave Sangin.
Kevin Wallace, pastor of Hillsborough, New Jersey-based Shepherd’s Hope, said: “Obviously we’re still very concerned about those that remain held but we’re able to exhale a bit.”
The hostages were transferred to a prison in the capital, Port-au-Prince, late on Saturday. A human rights lawyer working with the church said some of the hostages were also raped.
Eight of the kidnapped hostages have been released but the ninth, a missionary from Los Angeles, remains in jail.
The authorities in Sangin have been trying to negotiate a release through the Church of Haitian Apostolic Faith, a local Pentecostal church based in Florida.
“There is a message for our parishioners that we don’t want them to be despondent because this is just the beginning of a long, difficult and uncertain process,” Wallace said.