The Haitian gang that kidnapped 17 missionaries from the United States and Canada wants $17 million in ransom for their safe release.
The FBI, working with Haitian authorities, are reportedly in contact with the gang holding the group hostage as search and rescue efforts enter the fourth day.
New information is also coming out about the missionary group that includes five children aged 3, 6, 14, 15, with the youngest being just 8 months old.
"This is something we have treated with utmost priority since Saturday," said U.S. State Department Spokesperson Ned Price.
State Department officials on the ground in Haiti are working to secure the safe release of the hostages who were abducted at gunpoint in Port Au Prince while on their way home from an orphanage.
The group is there on behalf of the Ohio-based Christian Aid Ministries, which describes itself as a "channel for Amish, Mennonite, and other conservative Anabaptist groups and individuals to minister to physical and spiritual needs around the world."
Since the assassination of Haiti's president earlier this year, criminal gangs now rule the streets and kidnappings are on the rise.
CBN News spoke with Emmanuela Delsoin, director of Operation Blessing Haiti, about what it's like in Haiti right now.
"We feel like we don't have anyone who is driving and leading the country," Delsoin told CBN News. "I think that this is the worst moment for me in Haiti."
Delsoin says the gangs used to leave American citizens alone, but that's not the case anymore.
"It used to be targeted, but now the whole population is targeted," she continued. "Everyone is a target and no one is safe."
With gangs growing in strength and now controlling about half the capital city of Port-Au-Prince, aid groups like CBN's Operation Blessing are finding it difficult to get their relief supplies to those who need them.
"Everything has been already paid so we are just waiting to see when there will be a kind of calm so we can make the distributions," explained Delsoin.
In addition to asking for prayers for the safe release of their aid workers, Christian Aid Ministries is also urging believers to pray the hearts of the kidnappers would be transformed by the love of Jesus Christ.
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