All the people and organisations that combined their time and resources to rescue those 59 orphans and their caregivers from Haiti deserve the highest praise.

It was obvious from the images captured on their arrival at the Errol Flynn Marina in Port Antonio, Portland, last Thursday, that they were overjoyed at being in a safe environment.

From all accounts these orphans and the staff at HaitiChildren, the organisation that operates the orphanage, had a hellish existence in that country since heavily-armed gangsters took control of much of the capital, Port-au-Prince, after the assassination of President Jovenel Moise in 2021.

Reports of rape, murder, kidnappings, extortion, and deadly street battles between rival gangs have been coming out of Haiti as the country plunges deeper into crisis each day.

Added to all that is political chaos and the spectre of hunger.

Last week Mr Farhan Haq, a spokesman for United Nations Secretary General Mr Antonio Guterres, said new figures show nearly five million people — about half the population — face “crisis or worse levels of acute food insecurity”. Of that number, approximately 1.6 million face “emergency” insecurity.

Last week as well, the UN’s International Organization for Migration said that more than 33,000 people had fled Port-au-Prince in two weeks. While many, we are told, have mostly headed to the Great South area — which is already hosting 116,000 displaced people — the UN has cautioned that it is seeing a “concerning trend of Haitians undertaking dangerous journeys across continental America and the Caribbean, where sea voyages pose heightened risks”.

Yesterday’s Sunday Observer reported Mustard Seed Communities Founder Monsignor Gregory Ramkissoon as saying that he had received disturbing reports of gangsters raping some of the children in the orphanage run by HaitiChildren and getting doctors to go in and declare some of them clinically dead in order to harvest their organs for sale.

“One kidney was going for US$35,000, and it was going up the chain. People at a higher level knew about it. Hearing this, when the Lord puts it in front of you it would be a terrible misdeed to let them stay in Haiti,” Monsignor Ramkissoon said.

These 59 orphans and 13 caregivers are no longer being subjected to the nightmare being unleashed on Haitians thanks to Mustard Seed, the Jamaican Government, former United States Ambassador to Jamaica Mr Luis Moreno; Jamaica’s former Chief of Defence Staff Rear Admiral Hardley Lewin; and Sentinel Foundation, a non-profit organisation in North Carolina, United States, that targets child traffickers, protects children, and provides crisis response.

Unfortunately, though, there are another 34 children at the orphanage. They, along with millions of Haitians are at the mercy of the gangsters who, we suspect, are comfortable with the status quo, despite their claims of wanting to see the establishment of an interim government.

Despite the efforts of the international community, working with stakeholders in Haiti to move the country towards some semblance of stability, we fear that the needle on that intention will not move in any significant way.

However, we can’t leave the country in the clutches of these subhumans who Ms Susan Krabacher, founder of HaitiChildren, correctly labelled “agents of Satan”.