Freed from Haiti, missionary returns 'with mixed emotions'

clipped from www.cnn.com Port-au-Prince, Haiti (CNN) -- After more than a month in a Haitian jail, an American missionary was free Monday night, looking forward to a hot shower and a long night in bed on home soil. But Charisa Coulter's heart remains in Haiti, her father said, because her best friend, Laura Silsby is now alone behind bars. "She came back with mixed emotions," Mel Coulter told CNN affiliate WSVN in Miami, Florida. Coulter is staying in a hotel by herself, her father said. He did not know when she might return home to Boise, Idaho. He said his daughter had been through a "trying experience" and was welcoming the solitude. Coulter, Silsby and eight other Americans had been detained in Haiti on suspicion of kidnapping 33 children after the killer earthquake January 12. Silsby said she was "very happy that Charisa went home today." She expected her freedom would soon follow. "I came here to help these children," she said.

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American missionary held in Haiti released

clipped from www.cnn.com Port-au-Prince, Haiti (CNN) -- Charisa Coulter, one of two American missionaries detained for more than a month in Haiti on suspicion of kidnapping 33 children after January 12's devastating earthquake, was released Monday. She walked out of judicial police headquarters and headed to the nearby airport Monday afternoon. Attorneys Chillier Roi and Ricardo Chachoute, who are representing Coulter and the American who still is being detained, Laura Silsby, earlier told CNN that the judge had OK'd Coulter's release. Silsby and Coulter were among 10 Americans stopped by Haitian authorities on January 29 as they tried to cross the Haiti-Dominican Republic border with 33 children. Authorities said the group didn't have proper legal documentation. The 10 Americans, many of whom belong to a Baptist church in Idaho, have said they were trying to help the children get to a safe place after the 7.0-magnitude earthquake flattened cities and towns in Haiti.

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Haiti judge to free some detained US missionaries

clipped from news.yahoo.com PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – A Haitian judge says some of the 10 U.S. missionaries arrested on charges of child kidnapping will be released. Judge Bernard Saint-Vil has not said which will be freed Wednesday. He says the Americans will be allowed to return to the United States without posting bail but would have to return if called back. Saint-Vil says the investigation is continuing. The Idaho-based group is accused of trying to take 33 Haitian children out of the quake-stricken country. They say they were on a humanitarian mission and have denied accusations of trafficking. THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below. U.S. Marshals say they are hunting for Jorge Puello, who was already being pursued by authorities in the Dominican Republic on an Interpol warrant out of El Salvador, where police say he led a ring that lured young women and girls into prostitution. He also had an outstanding warrant for a U.S. parole violation.

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New lawyer in Haiti case: Missionaries acted with 'heart'

clipped from www.usatoday.com PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Newly appointed lawyers for the U.S. missionaries accused of child trafficking emerged from a court hearing Monday and said their clients violated no laws when they tried to rescue 33 Haitian children.. "The Americans acted with heart," lawyer Aviol Fleurant said outside a courthouse in the capital. "They had no intention to violate the Haitian law." Fleurant said the missionaries "have a document" authorizing them to take the children, and he predicted their exoneration. Fleurant and another lawyer were appointed Monday to represent Laura Silsby and nine volunteers, most from a Baptist church in Idaho, after their original lawyer was fired last weekend over an allegation of bribery. "I am trusting God to reveal all truth and that we will be released and exonerated of charges, and we are just waiting for the Haitian process, legal process, to complete," she told a throng of reporters as she was led away to a police van.

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Haiti death toll up to 230,000

Image by United Nations Photo via Flickr

clipped from www.usatoday.com PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Haiti's government has raised the death toll for the Jan. 12 earthquake to 230,000 from 212,000 and says more bodies remain uncounted. The government initially estimated 150,000 dead on Jan. 24, apparently from bodies being recovered in the rubble of collapsed buildings in Port-au-Prince, the capital that was near the epicenter. Communications Minister Marie-Laurence Jocelyn Lassegue said Tuesday the government now counts 230,000 deaths. But she says the new figure is not definitive. She says it does not include bodies buried by private funeral homes in private cemeteries or the dead buried by their own families. PHOTOS: Latest images from Haiti EU SUMMIT: Focuses on Haiti, economy

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Attorney says U.S. Baptists charged in Haitian child case

clipped from www.onenewsnow.com PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - Ten Americans detained in Haiti for trying to take 33 children out of the country after the earthquake were charged with child kidnapping and criminal association on Thursday, their Haitian lawyer said. Edwin Coq said that a judge found sufficient evidence to file charges against the Americans, who were arrested Friday at Haiti's border with the Dominican Republic. Coq attended Thursday's hearing and has represented the entire group in Haiti. The U.S. citizens, most of them members of an Idaho-based church group, were whisked away from the closed court hearing to jail in Port-au-Prince, the capital. One of them, Laura Silsby, waved and smiled faintly to reporters but declined to answer questions. Coq said that under Haiti's legal system, there won't be an open trial, but a judge will consider the evidence. It could take the judge three months to render a verdict, Coq said.

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US Baptists face court in child quake victim case

Image via Wikipedia

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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U.S. missionaries go before judge in Haiti child case | Reuters

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

• U.S. missionaries go before judge in Haiti child case | Reuters

  "The missionaries were arrested on Friday trying to cross into the Dominican Republic from Haiti with a busload of 33 children they said were orphaned by the January 12 quake. They denied charges they were engaged in child trafficking, insisting they were trying to help vulnerable orphans. Haitian police have said some of the children have living parents. The case could be diplomatically sensitive at a time when the United States is spearheading a huge relief effort to help hundreds of thousands of Haitian quake victims, and as U.S. aid groups pour millions of dollars of donations into Haiti. The five missionaries were questioned behind closed doors at Haiti's judicial police headquarters in Port-au-Prince, where they are being held behind bars. They were escorted from their cells by uniformed Haitian National Police officers to a separate room where the judge awaited along with a clerk and a translator. "I heard five of them. Then I will hear the other five tomorrow," Judge Ezaie Pierre-Louis said. "After the hearing tomorrow, I will make a report to the prosecutor, then he will decide what he does next." Communications Minister Marie-Laurence Lassegue said the missionaries did not have lawyers present. One of the missionaries, a woman, was returned to the police building on Tuesday after being treated at a hospital for hypertension. Before the hearing, prosecutor Mazarre Fortil said authorities were in the preliminary stages of the investigation. "I am here to hear the Americans, to know more about the case, about what were their intentions," he said. "We are looking deeper into what happened to determine the next steps." SOME PARENTS GAVE UP CHILDREN Haitian authorities have repeatedly expressed concerns that child traffickers could prey on children in the chaos that followed the earthquake that killed up to 200,000 people."

  tags: missionaries, Haiti, trafficking

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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Image by Getty Images via Daylife

The UN says more than 130,000 people have now been relocated out of Port-au-Prince by the authorities, easing the pressure on overcrowded camps in the city. Others have left independently.

With the search-and-rescue phase officially over, international groups are focused on humanitarian efforts, with aid workers still struggling to get food, water and other supplies to all those in need.

"The aid we have available... is being pushed out," Lt Gen Ken Keen, commander of the US military operation in Haiti, told Reuters news agency.

"But the need is tremendous. Every day is a better day than yesterday. Tomorrow will be a better day than the day before."

clipped from news.bbc.co.uk Haiti capital earthquake death toll 'tops 150,000' The confirmed death toll from Haiti's devastating earthquake has risen above 150,000 in the Port-au-Prince area alone, a government minister has said. Many more remain uncounted under rubble in the capital and elsewhere, including the towns of Jacmel and Leogane. The search for survivors has officially ended and the focus has shifted to aid. But a 24-year-old man was pulled alive from the remains of a hotel in the capital on Saturday after 11 days under the rubble, in what rescuers described as "a miracle". He later told reporters that soft drinks and snacks had kept him going. A French medic said he could expect to leave hospital within a day or two. "Nobody knows how many bodies are buried in the rubble - 200,000, 300,000? Who knows the overall death toll?" the Associated Press quotes her as saying on Sunday.

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Aftershocks a way of life in quake-ravaged Haiti

clipped from edition.cnn.com Port-au-Prince, Haiti (CNN) -- Another aftershock rocked Haiti on Friday. Buildings shook. People looked around to see what else might fall. The quake Friday morning had a magnitude of 4.4, the Geological Survey said. That makes it much less powerful than the 7.0-magnitude quake that struck 10 days ago, leaving widespread death and destruction in its wake. An earthquake on Wednesday was the strongest aftershock so far, with a magnitude of 5.9. While each new earthquake can slow relief efforts, those efforts were advancing Friday, including at the port, where critical supplies are being shipped in.

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