by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent
(Worthy News) - Seventy-nine-year-old Pastor Jean Pierre Ferrer Michel has been released from captivity in Haiti after members of the 400 Mawozo gang dressed as National Police officers abducted him and a male parishioner on October 3, CBN News reports.
A founding member of the Jesus Center church in Port-au-Prince, Pastor Michel and his parishioner were abducted in the church parking lot at 8am in the morning of October 3. Family members reported paying the ransom initially requested, now understood to be $300,000, but the abductors refused to release the men. Concerns were raised for the elderly pastor’s health and that he did not have his medication with him.
A further $250,000 was reportedly given to the abductors, and the pastor’s release was confirmed Tuesday in a Facebook video posted by his daughter, CBN News said.
The notorious 400 Mawozo gang is still holding sixteen American and one Canadian Christian Aid Ministries missionaries who were abducted together in Haiti on October 16; there are five children among their group. A ransom of $17 million has reportedly been demanded for their release, CBN reports.
Christian Aid has issued a call for prayer for the group’s safety after the kidnappers issued a threat to kill them all.