Jean-Max Bellerive Called American Group "Kidnappers"

Did an American missionary church group try to kidnap 33 children from Haiti? That is the charge being made by Haiti's Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive about the Americans who tried to bring 33 Haitian children back home to America with them.

10 members of an American church group have been detained by Haitian authorities, for allegedly attempting to take the 33 children out of their home country. Reportedly the children insisted they were not orphans and still had families in Haiti to live with, but somehow the Americans tried to take them away anyway. One member of the church group was quoted as saying "God wanted us to come here to help children; we are convinced of that, Our hearts were in the right place." The Prime Minister has since tempered his words and acknowledged the Americans may have simply been misguided. But it is still a sobering example of how good intentions can go dangerously wrong in this sort of crisis.

It has also been suggested in some reports that families are sometimes giving up their own children to be taken out of the country, simply because they believe they are too impoverished to care for their child properly. Whatever the full story, hopefully the best interests of these kids and their famnilies can be served as this is all sorted out, whether they go through an adoption process or not. And hopefully the country will be rebuilt enough that it won't seem necessary to take kids away from there to give them a shot.

Jean-Max Bellerive Called American Group "Kidnappers"
Time

Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive lashed out at the group as "kidnappers" who "knew what they were doing was wrong," though he later conceded the group might have been misguided. Still, authorities are dubious about the Americans' qualifications and are certain that the group did not have permission to take the children out of the country. It also appears that many of the children were not orphans at all, but were placed in the care of the U.S. church group after their families were promised they would have a better life...

Jean-Max Bellerive Called American Group "Kidnappers"