Ten U.S. Baptists were being held in Port-au-Prince after trying to take 33 children out of Haiti at a time of growing fears over possible child trafficking.

The church members, most from Idaho, said they were trying to rescue abandoned and traumatized children. But officials said they lacked the proper documents when they were arrested Jan. 29 in a bus with earthquake survivors aged from 2 months to 12 years, some of whom have parents who are alive.

The group said its "Haitian Orphan Rescue Mission" was an effort to help abandoned children by taking them to a resort-cum-orphanage across the border in the Dominican Republic.

Whether they realized it or not, the Americans put themselves in the middle of a firestorm in Haiti, where government leaders have suspended adoptions amid fears that parentless or lost children are more vulnerable than ever to child trafficking.