Twelve missionaries based in the US who were abducted in Haiti have revealed how they managed to get away on their own after the gang that seized them in October demanded a ransom of $1m (£740,000) per hostage.
The missionaries from Christian Aid Ministries say they made their escape at night and used the stars for navigation to trek through dense bush for hours, a church spokesman told reporters.
Christian Aid Ministries announced the group of 13 were finally free last week (second week of December) from a total of 17 missionaries and their families that were abducted.
Five others people had already been released. They were abducted after they had visited an orphanage.
“When they sensed the timing was right, they found a way to open the door that was closed and blocked, filed silently to the path they [had] chosen to follow and left the place that they were held,” church spokesman Weston Showalter said at a news conference in Ohio.
Evading “numerous guards”, the group travelled in the direction of a mountain that they had seen days earlier, using constellations to guide them.
The group included a married couple, a 10-month old baby, and children aged three, 14 and 15. There were also four adult men and two women.
