Father Macaire, 33, who was ordained fewer than two years ago, was kidnapped the morning of Feb. 7 when he was on his way to his missionary community in Kazal, about 20 miles north of Port-au-Prince.
Father Antoine Macaire Christian Noah escaped from his kidnappers in Haiti, February 2023. (photo: Father Fausto Cruz Rosa / Superior Major of the Antilles Delegation of the Claretian Missionaries)
Diego Lopez Marina/ACI Prensa/CNAWorldMarch 3, 2023
Father Antoine Macaire Christian Noah, a Claretian priest from Cameroon, escaped unharmed from a crime gang that had kidnapped him in Haiti last month and has been taken to another country for his safety.
On March 2, Father Fausto Cruz Rosa, major superior of the Antilles Delegation of the Claretian Missionaries, told ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, that Macaire “was kidnapped [and] held in isolation for 10 days in an abandoned house on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince,” the Haitian capital.
“On the 10th day, when [the kidnappers] had left, he was able to escape. The criminals went out frequently at night and left him locked up in one of the houses that gangs usually take over in Haiti,” he explained.
Father Macaire, 33, who was ordained fewer than two years ago, was kidnapped the morning of Feb. 7 when he was on his way to his missionary community in Kazal, about 20 miles north of Port-au-Prince.
He is currently in Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic, where he was sent and received by his congregation.
Father Cruz recounted that around 1 a.m. local time on Feb. 17, Father Macaire had to make a hole in the ceiling of the room where he had been confined to get outside, and then he started running until he reached a road.
“He ran a lot until 5:30 a.m., until he reached a neighboring town called Cabaret. There, a well-known priest took him in at the parish. He was there for a few days until we managed to take him to the island of Gonave, and later to the capital, heading toward the airport,” he said.
According to Father Cruz, the young priest was returning to Haiti after conducting the spiritual exercises for his delegation in the Dominican Republic.
After getting off the plane, Father Macaire took a bus that was intercepted by a crime gang.
“Apparently they only took him because he’s a foreigner. That’s the strategy they always use. And then they took him to the place where they held him,” the leader of the Claretian delegation related.
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