US Baptists face court in child quake victim case

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The 10 Baptists, most from Idaho, were arrested last week trying to take 33 Haitian children across the border without the required documents, according to Haitian authorities.

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.

clipped from news.yahoo.com PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Ten American missionaries who tried to take Haitian children out of the country faced a prosecutor on Thursday to learn if they will face child smuggling charges that could put them in prison on the impoverished Caribbean island. The Idaho-based church group says it was trying to rescue orphaned and abandoned child victims of the Jan. 12 earthquake, taking them to a better life at an orphanage in the neighboring Dominican Republic. And parents in the badly damaged village of Callebas said they willingly had handed over children because they were unable to feed or clothe the youngsters. "I am living in a tent with a friend," said Laurentius Lelly, a 27-year-old computer technician who gave up his two children, ages 4 and 6. "My main concern is that if the kids come back I'm not going to be able to feed them."

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