{"id":132998,"date":"2024-03-21T11:00:23","date_gmt":"2024-03-21T15:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=132998"},"modified":"2024-03-21T11:00:23","modified_gmt":"2024-03-21T15:00:23","slug":"haitian-americans-in-florida-are-desperate-to-hear-from-relatives-as-violence-roils-their-homeland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=132998","title":{"rendered":"Haitian Americans In Florida Are Desperate To Hear From Relatives As Violence Roils Their Homeland"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-132992\" src=\"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/240314-Borgella-Antoine-se-1141a-d73c64-640x800.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"240\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/240314-Borgella-Antoine-se-1141a-d73c64-640x800.jpg 640w, https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/240314-Borgella-Antoine-se-1141a-d73c64-128x160.jpg 128w, https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/240314-Borgella-Antoine-se-1141a-d73c64-1024x1280.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/240314-Borgella-Antoine-se-1141a-d73c64.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 240px) 100vw, 240px\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: center;\"><strong>Borgella Antoine&#8217;s family said he is being held for $500,000 ransom.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">MIAMI \u2014 It has been over two weeks since the family of Steeve Pierre, a Miami resident originally from Haiti, received the dreaded phone call asking for a ransom for the release of his cousin.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Pierre, 40, who came from Haiti in 2019 and owns a landscaping business in Miami, said his cousin, Borgella Antoine, went missing in Haiti at the end of February. Antoine, a truck driver, was delivering goods when he was kidnapped by members of a gang.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cAt the beginning, we were trying to do something,&#8221; Pierre said. &#8220;I even sent money to Haiti in an effort to raise enough money to get him released.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But the gang started asking for more money and now wants $500,000. It\u2019s too much for Pierre&#8217;s family, and the owner of the truck company he works for is now trying to negotiate to lower the ransom.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cIt\u2019s very stressful for all the family. Whenever your phone rings you\u2019re afraid to answer because you don\u2019t know what the news will be,\u201d Pierre said. \u201cWe\u2019re praying he\u2019s alive and will come home safe.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Borgella Antoine&#8217;s family said he is being held for $500,000 ransom. &nbsp; MIAMI \u2014 It has been over two weeks since the family of Steeve Pierre, a Miami resident originally from Haiti, received the dreaded phone call asking for a ransom for the release of his cousin. Pierre, 40, who came from Haiti in 2019 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88889,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-132998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national-news","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/88889"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=132998"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132998\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":133000,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132998\/revisions\/133000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=132998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=132998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=132998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}