Haiti gang demand $17m ransom for release of kidnapped American and Canadian missionaries
A ransom of $1m (£720,000) is being demanded for each of the 17 American and Canadian missionaries kidnapped in Haiti.
The country’s justice minister, Liszt Quitel, said talks are under way with gang to release the group, who were kidnapped over the weekend outside Port-au-Prince.
They were taken by a gang called 400 Mawozo, who are now demanding a total of $17m (£12.3m).
Haiti is the poorest country in the Americas, and a surge in gang violence has displaced thousands of people. AP file pic
Mr Quitel added that the FBI and Haitian police are advising the Christian Aid Ministries – the non-profit aid agency the group were part of – who were called about a ransom after the missionaries were kidnapped.
The Ohio-based organisation called for prayers for the “Haitian and American civil authorities who are working to resolve this situation”.
Among the 16 Americans and one Canadian are five children, including an eight-month-old baby.
They were abducted in Croix-des-Bouquets, about eight miles outside the capital.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said the US government is “relentlessly focused” on the kidnapping. and is in constant communication with Haitian police and the missionaries’ church.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
What’s happening at the Texas border?
“Unfortunately, this is also indicative of a much larger problem and that is a security situation that is quite simply unsustainable,” Mr Blinken said, referring to gangs that control parts of Port-au-Prince.
Doris Michel, a Haitian-American woman, has blamed Haiti’s government for the increase in kidnappings after her 89-year-old father was kidnapped last month.
He was taken by in a gang-controlled area and the kidnappers demanded $6m (£4.3m) in ransom, which later increased to $10m (£7.26m).
“We kept saying, ‘We don’t have that kind of money,'” Ms Michel recalled. “Then it switched to, ‘What kind of money do you have?'”
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Haiti hospitals struggle with earthquake casualties
She added that the hostages survived on a bowl of rice a day and three bags of water.
Ms Michel dropped off the money at a specific location, only for the gang members to claim they didn’t receive it. They demanded another payment.
She said the FBI did little to help and advised her to gather more money and restart negotiations, while Haitian police did not get involved.
Her father, who fought in the Vietnam war, was released after 11 days.
Pro-Palestinian protesters took over a university building in the US – the latest escalation of demonstrations at college campuses against the Israel-Hamas war.
The demonstrators barricaded the entrance of the building at Columbia University in New York on Tuesday and unfurled a Palestinian flag out of a window.
Video footage showed protesters on the Manhattan campus locking arms in front of Hamilton Hall and carrying furniture and metal barricades to the building.
Follow latest: Deal between Israel and Hamas ‘not far off’
Protesters block the entrance of Hamilton Hall at Columbia University. Pic: AP
Pic: AP
A group called Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) said Hamilton Hall was now called “Hind’s Hall” in honour of Hind Rajab, a six-year-old girl killed in a strike on Gaza in February.
The student radio station broadcast a play-by-play of the hall’s takeover, which occurred nearly 12 hours after a deadline for the protesters to leave an encampment of around 120 tents or face suspension.
Protesters unfurled a flag with the words ‘Hind’s Hall’. Pic: Reuters
Protesters at Hamilton Hall. Pic: Reuters
Demonstrators said they planned to remain at the hall until the university conceded to the CUAD’s three demands: divestment, financial transparency and amnesty.
One protester, a 22-year-old student who did not wish to be named, told Sky News she has relatives in Gaza and she will “not stop attending protests until the war ends and (Columbia University) agrees to divest”.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Israel-Hamas war divides US universities
“We have Jewish, Christian, Muslim people of faith and people of no faith standing with me, holding my hands in solidarity with the injustice that is happening in Palestine,” she said.
“If we have to be here all day we will, we need peace and we need justice. They are threatening to suspend us but we are standing up for human rights.”
Read more:
Why are university students protesting in the US?
Eyewitness report: Nuance is lost at university campus protests
Dozens of people were arrested on Monday during protests at universities in Texas, Utah, Virginia and New Jersey, while Columbia said hours before the takeover of Hamilton Hall that it had started suspending students.
Police moved to clear an encampment at Yale University in Connecticut on Tuesday morning, but there were no immediate reports of arrests.
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
The campus protests began as a response by some students to Israel’s offensive in Gaza after Hamas launched a deadly attack on southern Israel on 7 October.
US
Israel-Hamas war: Students defy threat of suspension over Columbia University pro-Palestinian protest camp
Pro-Palestinian students in the US have defied an order by university officials to dismantle a tent camp set up to protest Israel’s war in Gaza or face suspension.
College authorities at Columbia University in New York, sent students a letter on Monday demanding they sign a form agreeing to obey university policies until June 2025 or an earlier graduation, if they wish to finish the term in good standing.
If they failed to comply by 2pm, local time, the letter said, they would be suspended, pending further investigation and would not finish the term, the note said.
A George Washington University student waves a Palestinian flag during a protest on Sunday. Pic: AP
A pro-Israeli counterprotester at Columbia University. Pic: Reuters
But those at the camp, now in its second week, voted nearly unanimously to stay put, NBC, Sky’s US partner, said.
Around 2.45pm, protesters were seen marching on the quad and chanting “Disclose! Divest! We will not slow, we will not rest!'”, NBC said.
More than 300 people and at least 120 tents remained.
Noting that exams are starting and graduation is coming up, the letter said: “We urge you to remove the encampment so that we do not deprive your fellow students, their families and friends of this momentous occasion.”
Mahmoud Khalil, the protesters’ lead negotiator, said university representatives began passing out the notices at the encampment shortly after 10am on Monday.
Demonstrators set up tents in the centre of the Columbia campus in one of the early pro-Palestinian protests over the Israel-Hamas war and its mounting death toll, but dissent quickly spread to other colleges, sparking clashes with police and arrests.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
At least 25 killed in Israeli strikes on Rafah
More than 900 people have been arrested across the US since police in New York removed a pro-Palestinian protest encampment at Columbia, arresting more than 100 demonstrators as they did so, on 18 April.
Clashes have continued, with about 275 people arrested on Saturday at various campuses including Indiana University at Bloomington, Arizona State University and Washington University in St Louis.
Barricades torn down by demonstrators at a student encampment at George Washington University in Washington. Pic: AP
On Sunday night and Monday, people at an encampment near George Washington University in the US capital, protested, breaching and dismantling barriers.
Protesters at Yale University set up a new encampment with dozens of tents on Sunday afternoon, nearly a week after police arrested nearly 50 demonstrators and cleared a similar camp.
Read more:
Student anti-Israel protests continue to sweep the US
Campus protests sum up a moment of divisiveness
Man arrested for swastika placard at London protest
A student encampment at George Washington University. Pic: AP
More than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed during the Israel-Hamas war, according to local health officials, who say about two-thirds of the dead are women and children.
Israel declared war on Hamas and unleashed an air and ground offensive in Gaza in response to the attack on southern Israel on 7 October.
Hamas killed about 1,200 people in Israel and took another 250 hostages in its assault.
-
Sports2 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Environment11 months agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Sports3 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Sports6 months agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Environment1 year agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Technology3 years ago
Game consoles were once banned in China. Now Chinese developers want a slice of the $49 billion pie
-
Politics2 years ago
Have the last few wobbly weeks seen a turning point for Johnson as PM?