WORLD: AMERICAN PASTOR ABDUCTED DURING SERMON IN SOUTH AFRICA
Read Time:1 Minute, 27 Second
According to authorities and a colleague, a US missionary was kidnapped by gunmen in South Africa on Friday while he was preaching at his church.
In what looked to be a kidnapping for ransom, Pastor Josh Sullivan was taken late Thursday from the Fellowship Baptist Church in Motherwell, which is outside the seaside city of Gqeberha, according to a colleague who spoke to AFP.
In recent years, there has been a rise in kidnappings in South Africa, notably by criminal groups that target individuals for whom high ransom demands can be made.
“It is alleged that while a sermon was conducted at the church, four armed and masked male suspects entered the church,” police said in a statement.
“They robbed two cell phones and then took the 45-year-old male pastor with them and fled the scene.”
Reverend Jeremy Hall, a pastor also based in the southeastern city, told AFP the abduction was probably “financially related”.
Sullivan was holding a prayer meeting with about 30 people, including his wife and six children, when four kidnappers entered, Hall said.
“They knew him by name,” he said. They took him at gunpoint and forced him into his car and drove off. The abandoned car was recovered about 1.5 kilometres (under a mile) from the church.
Sullivan arrived in South Africa with his family from Tennessee in November 2018, according to his personal website.
The police anti-gang unit said a Chinese national was kidnapped Tuesday in the city, which is on the Indian Ocean and about 920 kilometres (570 miles) southeast of Johannesburg.
There were more than 17,000 kidnappings in South Africa in the 2023/2024 financial year, an 11-percent increase over the previous year, according to police statistics.
AFP
Happy
0 %
Sad
0 %
Excited
0 %
Sleepy
0 %
Angry
0 %
Surprise
0 %
0
0