IMMEDIATELY after arriving at the Errol Flynn Marina in Port Antonio, Jamaica on Thursday, Susan Krabacher, founder of HaitiChildren, huddled in prayer with members of her team amidst wails from some of the 59 disabled orphans who were rescued from crisis-torn Haiti.

Krabacher described the gangs wreaking havoc and exacting death in Haiti as “agents of Satan”.

Through her orphanage, Krabacher became legal guardian of the orphans and went through great pains to get the children out of Haiti and to safety. According to her, she is determined to evacuate another 34 children under her organisation’s care and protection who are still in Haiti so they can receive the necessary care as gangs have shut off access to hospitals and continue to make aggressive demands for money. They aren’t afraid to exact violence on people trying to access services, she said.

Even the planned journey to Jamaica was delayed by six hours because gangsters refused to let the children board the ship until they received cash, according to Krabacher.

“They stopped our bus for six hours, demanding money and shooting in the air. I told my oldest son to give them money but he didn’t want to give them his last money. He gave them and they eventually let us pass, but they had detained these disabled children for six hours,” Krabacher told the Jamaica Observer in an exclusive interview on Thursday.

“In Haiti the [gang] leader wants to be the president and said that he will continue to rain down genocide on the country until foreign communities stop interfering with his leadership. I am not going to stop until I get our remaining children in Haiti out of the country. My orphanage is in-between two warring gangs, so we are just praying. We have armed security taking care of us. God got us here and He will get the others out. I lost faith a few times but look what has happened! I will never lose my faith again,” she said.

“The gangs told us clearly that if we don’t put these disabled kids out of their misery they would do it for us. The disabled are shunned in Haiti. They are ostracised and people believe they are cursed because of voodoo. This is the best day of the entire journey. Everytime I would have to call the children and say ‘I am sorry, they changed their mind’. We had so many starts and stops. We would start and then the Government changes its mind. It was incredibly difficult to get them to sign the release of the children because they said Haitians must remain in Haiti,” she said.

Krabacher said many of the children “are extremely ill” and that there is no place in Haiti to treat them.

“The last child we had that died [was taken to] three different hospitals and not one was equipped to take them in, because nurses and doctors are fleeing the country. They just say, ‘We can’t help you’ and when we leave we get attacked by gangsters. The children either die because they can’t find medical care or from gunshots,” she said.

After experiencing many nightmares over the situation, the orphanage founder said she was grateful to all stakeholders for making Thursday’s voyage a reality. She singled out Mustard Seed Communities and the Jamaican Government for agreeing to accept and accommodate the children and revealed that she spent 14 months trying to finalise the release of the children from Haiti.

Krabacher said Thursday night would be the first time she will get a good night’s rest in more than a year.

Jamaican health officials, meanwhile, screened the children before they were taken to Mustard Seed’s Ephesus Village, Jacob’s Ladder in Moneague, St Ann, where they are being housed.

The arrangement is initially for two years and funding will be provided by HaitiChildren’s various established donors.

“It took a lot of sacrifice to get the children here. It could have cost me my life. I just risked it because we had to get the children better care,” Christo Romain, the Haitian director of the orphanage, told the Observer.

Austin Holmes, operations officer of rescue organisation Sentinel Foundation, was satisfied that he and his colleagues, equipped with their military background, were able to participate in rescuing the children.

“Everybody likes to talk about the negatives, but there are some great things happening and we are thankful to be a part. We were requested to go in and help extract them from Haiti. Without a group like the Mustard Seed stepping up this wouldn’t have been possible. We had a short window to evacuate them. Once aboard the vessel on the 19th we were able to safely deliver care to them. We are thankful to 13 caregivers who diligently ensured they were cared for on the voyage here to Jamaica,” he said.