Young American couple among 3 missionaries killed in Haiti violenceExBulletin

Davy and Natalie Lloyd were among three missionaries killed in Haiti after being ambushed in Port-au-Prince, officials with the missionary organization said Friday, May 24, 2024. The third victim was Jude Montis, who was director of country missions in Haiti Inc. Brad Searcy Photography/via AP .

switch captionBrad Searcy Photography/via AP

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti An American missionary couple and a Haitian who worked with them were shot dead by gang members in the Haitian capital after being attacked as they left a youth group activity held at a local church, a family member said Friday. .

The attack occurred Thursday evening in the community of Lizon, north of Port-au-Prince, Lionel Lazarre, head of a Haitian police union, told The Associated Press.

The killings took place as the capital collapses under relentless assaults by violent gangs who control 80% of Port-au-Prince, while authorities await the arrival of a police force from Kenya as part of a UN-backed deployment aimed at cracking down on gang violence in the country. Caribbean countries in difficulty.

Two of the victims were a young married couple, Davy and Natalie Lloyd, according to a Facebook post from Natalie Lloyd's father, Missouri State Rep. Ben Baker. The third victim was Jude Montis, director of Missions In Haiti Inc.

“My heart is broken into a thousand pieces,” Baker wrote on Facebook Thursday. “I have never felt this kind of pain. Most of you know that my daughter and son-in-law Davy and Natalie Lloyd are full-time missionaries in Haiti. They were attacked by gangs tonight and were all two killed. They went to heaven together.”

Hannah Cornett, Davy Lloyd's sister, told the AP that her brother was 23 and Natalie Lloyd was 21. They were going to celebrate their second anniversary in June and his birthday in early July.

Cornett said her parents are full-time missionaries in Haiti and she and her two brothers grew up there.

“Davy spoke Creole before he spoke English. It was his home,” she said in a telephone interview. “Haiti was all we knew.”

Cornett, 22, said her parents ran an orphanage, school and church in Haiti, and she and her brothers grew up with the orphans: “It was just one big happy family there.”

She said her older brother was outgoing, built a garden and raised lots of animals. While he returned to the United States to study the Bible and then married, he returned to Haiti with Natalie Lloyd to do more humanitarian work.

“They had a lot of love for Haiti and they just wanted to help the people there,” Cornett said. “It’s their calling.”

Cornett noted that Montis worked with her parents for 20 years and left behind two children, ages 2 and 6.

She said that on the night of the attack, three vehicles carrying gang members stopped Lloyd and Montis as they crossed the street, hitting her brother in the head with the barrel of a gun. They forced him upstairs, stole his belongings and left him tied up. As people helped untie Davy Lloyd, another group of armed men arrived.

“No one knows what happened,” she said.

An unidentified person was shot and the gunmen opened fire as Lloyd and Montis fled toward the house where his parents live, Cornett said.

“They tried to hide there, but the gang shot at the house,” she said, adding that they were killed and their bodies set on fire.

Cornett said his mother returned from Haiti about a month ago and his father and younger brother left Wednesday because things were so quiet in the neighborhood.

“No one expected this to happen,” she said between tears.

On Friday afternoon, Baker posted on Facebook that the bodies of Davy and Natalie Lloyd had been safely transported to the U.S. Embassy.

The couple worked for Missions In Haiti Inc. The Claremore, Oklahoma, organization was founded by David and Alicia Lloyd, Davy Lloyd's parents. Natalie Lloyd's Facebook page indicates that the couple married on June 18, 2022, and that she began working with the mission organization in August 2022. She frequently posted photos of Haitian children on her page.

A Facebook post on the Missions In Haiti page Thursday evening said: “Around midnight: Davy, Natalie and Jude were shot and killed by the gang around 9 p.m. this evening. We are all devastated.”

Alicia Lloyd, Davy Lloyd's mother, told the Oklahoma-based Claremore Daily Progress newspaper that her son “was one of those people who could do anything.”

“I hope something good can come out of this. We don't see it now, but we don't want (their lives) to be in vain,” she was quoted as saying.

U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said the ambassador to Haiti was in contact with families “who we know are experiencing unimaginable grief.”

“Unfortunately, this reminds us that the security situation in Haiti cannot wait until too many innocent lives are lost,” he said in a statement, emphasizing the US government's commitment to rapid deployment of the Kenyan-led mission.

It was not immediately clear which gang or gangs were responsible for the fatal shooting.

However, a gang leader called Chyen Mechan, meaning “bad dog” in Haitian Creole, controls the area where the shooting took place. His real name is Claudy Cléstin and he is a dismissed civil servant from the Ministry of the Interior of Haiti.

The leader of another gang known as General Jeff also controls territory near the neighborhood where the couple was killed. The two gangs are part of a coalition known as Viv Ansanm, which means “Living Together.”

The coalition is responsible for launching large-scale attacks against key government infrastructure starting February 29. Gunmen attacked police stations, opened fire on the main international airport which remained closed for nearly three months before opening earlier this week and stormed Haiti's two largest prisons. , freeing more than 4,000 detainees.

The gangs are also accused of killing or injuring more than 2,500 people across Haiti from January to March, a 50% increase from the same period last year, according to the United Nations. Furthermore, more than 360,000 people have been forced to flee their homes by gangs who control 80% of Port-au-Prince.

Kidnappings are also commonplace, particularly among targets of American missionaries.

In October 2021, gang members kidnapped 17 missionaries, most of them U.S. citizens. Many members of the group, which included five children, were held captive for more than two months before escaping.

Then, in July 2023, gangs kidnapped an American nurse and her daughter from the campus of a Christian school near Port-au-Prince. They were released almost two weeks later.

The U.S. State Department has long recommended against travel to Haiti and urges all U.S. citizens in the country to leave as soon as possible.

On the Missions In Haiti website, the founders wrote that the organization was founded in 2000. It said it aimed to help “the country's greatest need, its children.”

A May 2023 newsletter posted on the mission's website noted that Natalie was “helping with the children at the House of Compassion and assisting our ACE school.” Davy has worked on many much-needed projects around our complex,” including the construction of a laundry room. bedroom and bathroom repair.

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