MEXICO CITY (OSV News): Six nuns from the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Anne were kidnapped on January 19 while travelling on a bus in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, according to the Haitian Conference of Religious. Other passengers on the bus also were taken in the abduction.
“These many kidnappings fill the consecrated people of Haiti with sadness and fear,” the conference said a statement, signed by conference president, P. Morachel Bonhomme.
Pope Francis appealed on January 21 for the release of all the hostages, while praying for “social harmony” in the country, Vatican News reported. In remarks after the Angelus, he said he had “learned with sorrow the news of the kidnapping” of the sisters and the others. “I call on everyone to stop the violence, which causes so much suffering to that dear population.”
Bonhomme in his statement prayed that “the spirit of strength be given” to the sisters “to find a way out of this terrible situation … May the solidarity of the consecrated people of Haiti and the world help them overcome this difficult ordeal.”
In a statement published on January 19, Bishop Pierre-André Dumas of Anse-à-Veau et Miragoâne, prayed “to help us put an end to this bitter nightmare and this tragic ordeal of our people which has lasted too long.” He also offered himself in exchange for the hostages.
“We denounce with vigour and firmness this ultimate odious and barbaric act which does not even respect the dignity of these consecrated women who give themselves wholeheartedly to God to educate and train the young, the poorest and the vulnerable in our society,” Bishop Dumas wrote, according to a translation posted on social media by Father Louis Mérosné.
“Let us call for the release of these nuns as well as their driver and the other passengers of the bus,” the bishop said. “We also ask that these abject and criminal practices be stopped on the sacred land of Haiti since they degrade the dignity of the human being … by plunging us into the inhuman abyss of nothingness.”
The Sisters of St. Anne, founded in Quebec, Canada, in the 1850s, started working in Haiti in 1944. They focus on educational projects in Haiti and have 40 sisters in the country, according to its website.
Kidnappings have plagued Haiti in recent years — with religious and missionaries falling victim. Five priests, two nuns and two other victims were freed in 2021 after being held for nearly three weeks. They were kidnapped as they travelled east of the capital.
The country is the poorest in the hemisphere and also convulsed with gang violence, which has intensified since the 2021 assassination of the president, Jovenel Moïse.
By some estimates, gangs have taken over about taken over about 80% of the Port-au-Prince area.
