Irish kidnap victim in Haiti: "I was petrified one of us would be used in a human sacrifice"

Speaking for the first time since her release on August 29, Ms Heraty said: "A lot of these gangs, they will tell you themselves, they’re working for the devil. I was petrified that any one of us could be used in a sacrifice. That some witch doctor would say to them 'if you want to have all your strength and all your powers you need to do this to these people'."

The missionary was abducted from the orphanage where she worked and taken to an undisclosed location, where she was held for ransom for 26 days, along with five other members of staff and a three-year-old boy.

"You were carrying your fear and hope with you every single day, and you were trying to make sure that your fears were less than your hope," she told Midwest Radio host Tommy Marren.

Ms Heraty was subjected to both verbal and physical aggression throughout her captivity. She recalled being able to hear her captors talking outside each night. She said: "We all knew what they were talking about and what they were talking about was their attacks in different places."

She also remembers hearing her captors regularly scream, "we’re going to kill them, we’re going to burn them" while negotiating her release over the phone.

Ms Heraty said she was physically abused during her time in captivity, adding: "The first time it was just me that they were a little bit rough with, like walloping me."

 She detailed how, on the second occasion, "This young kid, that’s part of this gang, he came with a belt and he walloped me once."

Ms Heraty said she would often sit right in front of her captors so she would be chosen as the victim of an attack rather than the three-year-old boy.

She said: "I didn’t want him being a part of that aggression. When he is walloping me in my arm, a part of me is saying: 'Thank you, Jesus, that he is not walloping me in my face'."

And she told how, on another occasion, "they roughed up two of the other girls". Of her ordeal, the aid worker said she "knew they wanted me to cry out" but said "the last thing I would do is give in to them".

Ms Heraty said she eventually "went along with it because I knew that’s what they wanted" and that she tried her best to make the ordeal a ‘normal’ experience for the young boy.

She told how this was made even more difficult by the lack of provisions given by the captors, saying: "When the little boy had diarrhea we didn’t have nappies for him."

The group were kept in a "tiny room with just one bed" and Ms Heraty said the boy would not leave her side, leading to the two sharing a blanket on the floor. She added: "Food was sparse and it came sporadically."

She revealed that the group were only given a "small plastic cup of rice" each day, most of which they saved "for the little fella".

Explaining how she dealt with the immense hunger, Ms Heraty said: "I thought of all our ancestors that were hungry and I was kind of bringing them all together and saying 'I’m calling on all of you [because] we need all the strength we can to get through this'. How did Bobby Sands and those people manage all them days?"

Ms Heraty also revealed she relied on her father’s motto to help her endure captivity: There’s nothing bad that couldn’t be worse. She said she was always aware, even in the direst circumstances, there were people in the world still less fortunate.

The missionary said: "We had so many people praying for us, so we were praying for the people who have nobody praying for them. We were praying for the people in Gaza, the people in Haiti, for the people who are hungry all over the world."

Ms Heraty also described how one morning the boy yelled out to her, "Gena, there’s Mother Mary" while beckoning at a wall. She said there were several occasions when the boy claimed to see Mother Mary in their shack.

Ms Heraty emphasized that these moments were instrumental in helping the group through the ordeal, saying: "I felt that if he could see Mother Mary, we were going to be okay."

She said the experience has also allowed her to relate more deeply to the story of Jesus and "good and bad things happening to you".

She has decided to stay in Haiti to keep doing her work with the orphanage. Speaking on the decision, she said: "These gangs took a month of my life. They’re not getting one second more of it. When you’re faced with evil, or you’re faced with situations like this, the only way is to double your efforts to do good."

 She said she is "angry that they came to a home of seriously disabled children and adults and put everyone through this". Ms Heraty revealed that the orphanage’s oldest member died while being held captive separately from her.

She said: "I’m convinced she wouldn’t have died if she didn’t have that trauma on top of her illness."

While she did express anger towards her captors, she also said she feels "sorry" for the gang leaders, saying "they’re imprisoned in their own mentality".

She rejected claims she is "an incredible person", saying: "If I am an incredible person, it’s because I am giving what is needed to be incredible. I can’t take any credit for it."

She also claimed her nationality played a role in her endurance, telling Mr Marren: "This is what Irish people do – we don’t sit back and feel sorry for ourselves, we get on with it".

Ms Heraty said she hopes to return to Ireland for the Christmas holidays.

* This article was originally published on Extra.ie.