By DÁNICA COTO and PIERRE-RICHARD LUXAMA

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Efforts to secure the return of 17 members of a US-based missionary group and a local driver extended into a fourth day on Wednesday, with a violent gang demanding ransom from a million dollars per person.

The seized group includes five children aged 8 months to 15 years, although authorities did not say whether the ransom demand included them, a senior Haitian official said on Tuesday. Sixteen of those abducted are Americans and one Canadian.

The Ohio-based Christian Aid Ministries said they would hold a day of fasting and prayer for their missionaries on Thursday.

“We, along with government authorities, continue to work hard to get them home safely,” the group said. “This period of hardship reminds us of the continuing suffering of millions of Haitians. While our workers have chosen to serve in Haiti, our Haitian friends endure crisis after crisis, continuing violence and economic hardship. “

The FBI and other US agencies were “part of a coordinated effort by the US government” to free the missionaries, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on Tuesday, although officials in Haiti, United States and the religious group involved have remained silent on sensitive details.

A wave of kidnappings has been added to the other miseries that beset the Caribbean nation. At least 119 people were kidnapped in Haiti during the first half of October, according to the Human Rights Analysis and Research Center, a local nonprofit group.

He said in addition to the 17 members of the missionary group, a Haitian driver was abducted with them, bringing the total to 18.

The Haitian official, who was not authorized to speak to the press, told The Associated Press that someone from the 400 Mawozo gang demanded the ransom on Saturday during an appeal to a leader of the Christian Aid Ministries, based in Ohio shortly after the kidnapping.

“This group of workers is committed to ministry throughout poverty-stricken Haiti,” the Ohio group said Tuesday, adding that missionaries recently worked on a project to help rebuild homes. lost in the magnitude 7.2 earthquake that hit southwestern Haiti on August 19. 14.

The group was returning from a visit to an orphanage when it was abducted, the organization said.

The wave of kidnappings led to a strike on Monday that shut down businesses, schools and public transport – yet another blow to Haiti’s anemic economy.

Life was largely back to normal on Wednesday, but unions and other groups vowed to hold another strike next week, and sporadic protests erupted in Port-au-Prince on Wednesday over lack of fuel. , with gangs accused of blocking gas distribution terminals.

Dozens of motorcycle taxi drivers circled a neighborhood in Delmas, setting tire barricades on fire and throwing stones at the roads to block them.

“We want gas for work! If we can’t find gas, we’ll shut the country down completely! they shouted. “(Prime Minister) Ariel Henry, if he can’t run the country, he has to go!

Similar protests had broken out the day before.

During a more peaceful demonstration Tuesday north of Port-au-Prince, dozens of people marched through the streets of Titanyen to demand the release of the missionaries. Some carried signs saying “Free the Americans” and “No to kidnappings!” And explained that the missionaries helped pay the bills and build roads and schools.

“They do a lot for us,” said Béatrice Jean.

A demonstration took place near the Prime Minister’s residence, where police fired tear gas to disperse a crowd demanding fuel.

The kidnapping was the largest of its kind reported in recent years. Haitian gangs have become more brazen as the country tries to recover from the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse on July 7 and the earthquake that left more than 2,200 dead.

Christian Aid Ministries said the kidnapped group included six women, six men and five children. A sign on the door to the organization’s headquarters in Berlin, Ohio said it was closed due to the kidnapping situation.

Word of the kidnappings quickly spread in and around Holmes County, Ohio, the hub of one of the largest populations of conservative Amish and Mennonites in the United States, said Marcus Yoder, executive director of the ‘Amish & Mennonite Heritage Center in Millersburg, Ohio, nearby.

Christian Aid Ministries, is supported by conservative Mennonite, Amish and allied groups who are part of the Anabaptist tradition.

The organization was founded in the early 1980s and began working in Haiti later in the decade, said Steven Nolt, professor of history and Anabaptist studies at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania. The group has year-round mission staff in Haiti and several countries, he said, and it ships religious, school and medical supplies around the world.

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Coto reported from San Juan, Puerto Rico. Associated Press reporters Matías Delacroix in Port-au-Prince, Matthew Lee in Washington, Pete Smith in Pittsburgh, John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio, and Julie Carr Smyth in Berlin, Ohio, contributed to this report.