Efforts drag on to free 17 missionaries kidnapped in Haiti

By DÁNICA COTO and PIERRE-RICHARD LUXAMA
Associated Press

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Efforts to win the return of 17 members of a U.S.-based missionary group and a local driver stretched into a fourth day Wednesday, with a violent gang demanding $1 million ransom per person. The group seized includes five children aged from 8 months to 15 years, although authorities were not clear whether the ransom demand included them. Sixteen of the abductees are Americans and one Canadian. A watchdog group sats at least 119 kidnappings were recorded in Haiti for the first half of October. It says a Haitian driver was abducted along with the missionaries.