by George Conger, Anglican Ink
At least 47 people were killed and more than 50 abducted in an overnight gang raid on Kenscoff, a hill town above Port-au-Prince, the United Nations said this week. Twenty-two of the dead were executed after seeking shelter at the Ark of the New Covenant Church.
Also known as the Church of the New Covenant Age, the Ark is an evangelical Pentecostal congregation founded in 1974 and led by Bishop Renelus Maxime. Fides, the Vatican’s missionary news agency, said the church stands near the municipal cemetery in the town center and had opened its doors to displaced families before it was burned.
The congregation numbers approximately 535 members and supports a network of 14 rural churches. It has worked with the American charity Chances for Children on feeding programs, mobile medical clinics, and pastoral training.
Haiti is home to the Episcopal Church’s largest diocese by membership, with close to 100,000 baptized members on its rolls. Its parishes, schools, and clinics have been living under the same gang violence now moving into the hills above the capital.
As of Wednesday evening, neither the Episcopal Diocese of Haiti nor the Episcopal Church’s national offices had issued a public statement on the Kenscoff killings.
Men identified with the Viv Ansanm coalition entered Kenscoff on motorbikes between 9:30 and 10:30 p.m. on Sunday, Aug. 23. They remained in the town until the early hours of Monday.
It was the first reported incursion into the town center, only minutes from the police station and mayor’s office.