Ten members of a US missionary group who tried to take 33 children out of Haiti after the nation's devastating earthquake were charged with child kidnapping and criminal association on Thursday.

Their lawyer said after a court hearing that a judge found sufficient evidence to charge the Americans, who were arrested Friday at Haiti's border with the Dominican Republic.

Group leader Laura Silsby has said they were trying to take orphans and abandoned children to an orphanage in the neighboring Dominican Republic.

Officials say many of the children still have parents.

The U.S. citizens, most of them members of an Idaho-based church group, were whisked away from the closed court hearing to jail in Port-au-Prince, the capital. One of them, Laura Silsby, waved and smiled faintly to reporters but declined to answer questions.

Each kidnapping count carries a possible sentence of five to 15 years in prison. Each criminal association count has a potential sentence of three to nine years.

Western Christian missionaries are using religion in order to kidnap children from poor countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. They often exploit natural or man made disasters such as wars posing as charity organization for the purpose of kidnapping poor and vulnerable children.