A missionary who has worked in Haiti for more than 26 years says she’s distressed watching what’s happening in the Caribbean country.

The powerful 400 Mawozo gang recently kidnapped 17 missionaries, including one Canadian – demanding ransoms ranging from a couple of hundred to more than a million dollars.

More than 300 kidnappings were reported to Haitian authorities between January and August of this year alone.

Karen Huxter of Springdale established an inter-denominational Christian mission and school in Haiti that currently offers schooling to some 400 children.

She had to leave Haiti with her adopted son more than a year ago so that he can avail of Canadian health care services, but they have not been able to return after being warned that it is simply too dangerous.

Huxter laments that the Haiti she knows and loves, no longer exists.

“My heart is there,” says Huxter, “I want to be there, and all the tears I’ve shed doesn’t help.”

“The country as I knew it,” she acknowledged sadly “is just not there.”

She says things have gotten so bad that the gangs are controlling the roads.

She believes the only way she would be able to return to the mission would be to take a helicopter from Port au Prince, but she’s been advised that even that would be too dangerous.