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PORT-AU-PRINCE: All 33 children US missionaries tried to take out of Haiti illegally after the January earthquake have parents, aid workers said Wednesday, as they were finally reunited with their families.
"It has turned out that all of the 33 children have parents. SOS Children's Villages is convinced that in most cases, the best place for a child to be cared for and protected is within the family," a statement from the group said.
Laura Silsby and nine fellow Baptists from Idaho were arrested on January 29 as they tried to take 33 Haitian children into the neighboring Dominican Republic by bus without the necessary documentation.
The group denied wrongdoing, saying it was only trying to help orphans in the wake of Haiti's devastating January 12 earthquake that killed more than 220,000 people.
Some parents told the judge they willingly handed over the children because they could no longer care for them following the devastating quake that destroyed much of the Haitian capital.
Nine of the accused have since been released and returned to the United States, but Silsby, the leader of the New Life Children's Refuge group, remains in a Port-au-Prince jail facing charges of child trafficking.
- AFP/sc
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