Villagers 'gave away children willingly'
Desperate parents in a struggling village perched above Haiti’s earthquake-flattened capital said they gave their children willingly to a group of US missionaries to take them to a better life.
The stories told by villagers in Callebas contradict claims by the Baptist group’s leader that the children came from orphanages or were handed over by distant relatives.
But they also laid bare the misery of a nation that was the hemisphere’s poorest even before the January 12 earthquake that killed at least 150,000 and left around one million people homeless.
The 10 Baptists, most from Idaho, were arrested last week trying to take 33 Haitian children across the border into the Dominican Republic without the required documents, according to Haitian authorities, who have accused them of child trafficking.
The Americans will appear before a prosecutor today who will decide whether to file charges or release them, communications minister Marie-Laurence Jocelyn Lassegue said.
Standing amid piles of debris that used to be their homes and the makeshift shelters of tin and plastic sheeting that have replaced them, the people of Callebas told how they came to surrender their children.
It began last week when a local orphanage worker, fluent in English and acting on behalf of the Baptists, convened nearly the entire village of 500 people on a dirt football field to present the Americans’ offer.
Isaac Adrien, 20, told his neighbours the missionaries would educate their children in the neighbouring Dominican Republic, the villagers said, adding that they were also assured they would be free to visit their children there.
Many parents jumped at the offer.
“It’s only because the bus was full that more children didn’t go,” said Melanie Augustin, 58, who gave her 10-year-old daughter Jovin to the Americans. Ironically, Ms Augustin had adopted Jovin because her birth parents couldn’t afford to care for her.
Mr Adrien said he met the Baptists’ leader, Laura Silsby of Meridian, Idaho, in the capital Port-au-Prince on January 26. She told him she was looking for homeless children, he said, and he knew exactly where to find them.
He rushed home to Callebas, where people scrape by growing carrots, peppers and onions. That day, he had a list of 20 children.
In a jail interview on Saturday, Ms Silsby said most of the children had been delivered to the Americans by distant relatives, while some came from orphanages that had collapsed in the quake.
“They are very precious kids that have lost their homes and families and are so deeply in need of, most of all, God’s love and his compassion,” she said.
The missionaries’ lawyer, Jorge Puello, said yesterday that the Baptists “willingly accepted kids they knew were not orphans because the parents said they would starve otherwise”.
In Washington, US secretary of state Hillary Clinton said the attempt to bring undocumented children out of Haiti was “unfortunate whatever the motivation” and the Americans should have followed proper procedures.
She said US officials were discussing the case with Haitian authorities.
Meanwhile hunger turned to anger in Haiti’s capital yesterday as hundreds of protesters marched through the streets accusing local officials of demanding bribes for donated food.
Aid workers said food and other supplies were now flowing into the country three weeks after the quake, but red tape, fear of ambush, transport bottlenecks and corruption were keeping it from many people who needed it.
Hungry protesters jogged along a broad avenue in the Port-au-Prince suburb of Petionville waving branches and chanting: “They stole the rice! They stole the rice!”
Danka Tanzil, 17, said a local official was demanding a bribe in return for coupons that entitle people to bags of donated food from the United Nations World Food Programme.
The World Food Programme began distributing the coupons to bring order to the aid distribution and prevent strong young men from forcing themselves to the front of food lines.
Aid officials say it has largely worked, despite scattered reports of abuses.
The UN agency “is aware of reports that our coupons have been resold, and we’ve also heard allegations of forgeries”, WFP spokeswoman Jennifer Parmelee said.
“However, all evidence from our co-operating partners who are managing the distributions ... is that this is not a widespread issue.”
The agency said it had reached more than 300,000 people through the coupon programme but needed to reach two million.
