)LONDON and PRETORIA) — An American missionary allegedly kidnapped at gunpoint during a church service in South Africa last Thursday has been rescued in “a high-intensity shootout” between police and his suspected captors, authorities said on Wednesday.
Three unidentified suspects were killed during Tuesday’s rescue operation, which was led by the South African Police Service’s elite Hawks unit, according to a statement from police spokesman Lt. Col. Avele Fumba.
While police have not yet named the rescued American, the Tennessee church with which he is affiliated has identified him as Josh Sullivan.
“Josh has been released. I just got ‘the go ahead to let it be known,” Tom Hatley, pastor of Fellowship Baptist Church in Maryville, Tennessee, said in a Facebook post early Wednesday. “Thank you for your support and prayers. Please do not stop praying for The Sullivans. Praise The Lord Jesus Christ!”
Investigators discovered that the abducted U.S. citizen, believed to be a pastor at a church in the South African port city of Gqeberha, was being held at a safe house there, Fumba said. As officers approached the house on Tuesday, suspects inside a vehicle opened fire and attempted to flee the scene, Fumba said, “leading to a high-intensity shootout in which three unidentified suspects were fatally wounded.”
“The victim was found inside the same vehicle from which the suspects had launched their attack,” Fumba added. “Miraculously unharmed, he was immediately assessed by medical personnel and is currently in an excellent condition.”
The investigation remains ongoing, according to Fumba.
Sullivan’s mother, Tonya Rinker of Maryville, Tennessee, previously confirmed that her son had been abducted.
“As a mother, you never think about something like this happening to your child, but faith carries you through the uncertainty,” Rinker told ABC News in a statement last week. “Joshua’s humor and wit are a blessing; he’s always ready with a joke, and forever seeking to make people laugh.”
Rinker described her son as “an exceptional father, husband, and son, embodying kindness, strength and generosity. He has a servant’s heart, a kind, compassionate spirit and is filled with selflessness. He has a burden for lost souls and has devoted his life to serving God in South Africa.”
Sullivan was reportedly abducted by armed men who burst into a church in Motherwell, a township near Gqeberha in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa, the Fellowship Baptist Church in Maryville said on its Facebook page last week.
The incident unfolded at about 7 p.m. local time on Thursday when the pastor of the church “was allegedly confronted by at least four unknown armed suspects during a church service,” Fumba told ABC News in a statement.
Witnesses told investigators that the suspects forced the minister into his own vehicle and then fled, Fumba said.
According to a biography on what appears to be Sullivan’s website, he describes himself as a “church-planting missionary to the country of South Africa,” who arrived there in November 2018 with his wife, Meagan, and their children to run Fellowship Baptist’s Motherwell church there.
Sullivan has been on the staff at Fellowship Baptist Church in Maryville since 2012, according to his website.
ABC News’ Kevin Shalvey and Bill Hutchinson contributed to this report.
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