Weekend post :Parents: All Haitian ‘orphans’ had relatives

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - Although a U.S. Baptist group said it was trying to rescue 33 "orphans" by taking them out of earthquake-ravaged Haiti, all the children have close family still alive, The Associated Press has found.

Mom persuaded to give away children
Chesnel's wife, 33-year-old Bertho Magonie, said her husband persuaded her to give away their children — ages 12, 7, 3, and 1 — and a 10-year-old nephew living with them because their house had collapsed and the kids were sick.

"They were vomiting. They had fevers, diarrhea and headaches," she said, leaning against the wall of the grimy two-room hovel the couple shares.

In a telephone interview from the U.S. on Saturday, Sainvil confirmed the Chesnels' story. He said a collapsed building adjacent to where the children lived held six or seven corpses.

He said he first met Silsby on Jan. 27 in the town of Ouanaminthe on the Haiti-Dominican border and agreed to help her collect children for a 150-bed orphanage the Americans were establishing near the beach resort of Cabarete in the Dominican Republic.

Sainvil, a former orphan who says his nondenominational Haiti Sharing Jesus Ministry has 25 churches in the countryside, said the two agreed to meet again in Port-au-Prince on Feb. 13 to get more children.

The day after he met Silsby, Sainvil collected the 13 children from Citron. A day after that, the missionaries' bus was halted at the Dominican border and they were arrested. Sainvil, meanwhile, became sick with vomiting and diarrhea and decided to fly back to the U.S. on a military transport plane.