AMERICAN PASTOR ABDUCTED IN SOUTH AFRICA FREED, THREE SUSPECTS KILLED – POLICE

April 16, 2025

Read Time:54 Second

A U.S. missionary, Josh Sullivan, 45, has been rescued by South African police nearly a week after he was abducted at gunpoint. Sullivan was taken last Thursday while delivering a sermon at the Fellowship Baptist Church in Motherwell, a township near the coastal city of Gqeberha.

The rescue operation, carried out on Wednesday, ended in a dramatic shootout between the police and the kidnappers.

South African police said Wednesday that the previous day, officers acting on a tip-off had approached a house in the KwaMagxaki district of Gqeberha.

The suspects tried to flee in a vehicle as they approached, opening fire on officers, said the police statement.

In the ensuing shoot-out, the three suspects were fatally wounded and Sullivan was rescued, “miraculously unharmed”, from the same vehicle, the statement added.

Sullivan arrived in South Africa with his family from Tennessee in November 2018, according to his personal website.

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