Three Americans falsely accused in Haiti

Gary Tuchman of CNN reported yesterday that three American women were falsely accused of forging signatures on Haitian adoption papers. However, it was not until after a harrowing experience and lengthy detention that their names were finally cleared.

On Saturday, as the women went to return home, they were told their military flight out had been cancelled and they would need to make private arrangements for a flight home. Just outside the Haiti International Airport with the six boys, an angry mob approached them and started asking why they were taking babies from the country.

"Don't steal our children. Don't kidnap our children, you missionaries!" the angry group of men and women yelled.

Soon police arrived on the scene and took the women into custody. For nearly nine hours, the three American women were drilled with questions while their documents and the signatures on their documents went through careful inspection. The documents the women carried had been signed by both the Prime Minister of Haiti and the U.S. Embassy.

For some reason, the police told the women they felt the signatures on their paperwork were not genuine, so, at that point, they seized the children, ordering them to be kept in an orphanage in Haiti. The only explanation the women were given was that they needed to get their paperwork in order.

A U.S. Embassy official stepped in to help the women, but it was a grueling 72 hours before the women received the okay to take the six children to their adoptive homes in the U.S. Unfortunately, the story doesn't end there.

When the women were finally cleared and went to pick up the children from the orphanage, they became alarmed because the children were not there. They had been removed from the orphanage. Finally, U.S. Embassy personnel found the children in another orphanage and were able to pick them up and return them to the women.

Watch the video where CNN Gary Tuchman tells the story

Here's a full page of CNN Haiti Earthquake Reports

CNN Dr. Gupta: Why I returned to Haiti video