Young missionary couple from US among 3 killed by gunmen in Haiti’s capital, family says
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — An American missionary couple and a Haitian man who worked with them were shot dead by gang members in Haiti’s capital after they were attacked as they left a youth group activity held at a local church, a family member said Friday.
The attack took place Thursday evening in the community of Lizon in northern Port-au-Prince, Lionel Lazarre, head of a Haitian police union, told the Associated Press.
The killings came as the capital crumbled under the brutal onslaught of 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 suppress gang violence in the region. troubled Caribbean country.
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 Representative 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 on Thursday. “I’ve never felt such pain before. 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 mobs tonight and were both killed. They went to heaven together.”
Hannah Cornett, Davy Lloyd’s sister, told the AP that her brother was 23 years old and Natalie Lloyd was 21. They would celebrate their two-year 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 at home,” she said in a telephone interview. “Haiti was all we knew.”
Cornett, 22, says her parents run 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, had grown a garden and raised many animals. While he returned to the US for Bible college and then married, he returned to Haiti with Natalie Lloyd to do more humanitarian work.
“They just had a lot of love for Haiti, and they just wanted to help the people there,” Cornett said. “That is 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 the Lloyds and Montis as they crossed the street, hitting her brother in the head with the barrel of a gun. They forced him upstairs, stole their belongings and left him tied up. As people helped untie Davy Lloyd, another group of armed men appeared.
“Nobody knows what happened,” she said.
An unidentified person was shot and the gunmen opened fire as the Lloyds and Montis fled to the home where her parents live, Cornett said.
“They tried to take cover there but the gang set fire to the house,” she said, adding that they were killed and their bodies set on fire.
Cornett said her mother flew back from Haiti about a month ago, and her father and younger brother left on Wednesday because the neighborhood was so quiet.
“Nobody expected this to happen,” she said through 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 stated that the couple married on June 18, 2022, and that she began working with the mission organization in August 2022. She regularly posted photos of Haitian children on her page.
A Facebook post on the Missions in Haiti page late Thursday read: “Around midnight: Davy, Natalie and Jude were shot dead by the gang around 9 o’clock tonight. We are all devastated.”
Alicia Lloyd, mother of Davy Lloyd, told the Oklahoma-based Claremore Daily Progress newspaper that her son was “one of these 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 said.
U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said the ambassador to Haiti has been in contact with the families “who we know are experiencing unimaginable grief.”
“Sadly, this is a reminder that the security situation in Haiti cannot wait – too many innocent lives are being lost,” he said in a statement, noting the U.S. government’s commitment to the rapid deployment of the Kenyan-led mission.
It was not immediately clear which gang or gangs were responsible for the fatal shootings.
However, a gang leader named Chyen Mechan, which means “mean dog” in Haitian Creole, controls the area where the shooting took place. His real name is Claudy Célestin, and he is a fired official from the Haitian Ministry of the Interior.
The leader of another gang, known as General Jeff, also controls the area near the neighborhood where the couple was murdered. Both gangs are part of a coalition known as Viv Ansanm, which means ‘Living Together’.
The coalition is responsible for launching large-scale attacks on key government infrastructure starting February 29. Gunmen have attacked police stations, opened fire on the main international airport, which remained closed for almost three months before opening earlier this week, and stormed Haiti’s two largest prisons. , which freed more than 4,000 prisoners.
According to the United Nations, gangs are also blamed for killing or injuring more than 2,500 people in Haiti between January and March, a 50% increase compared to the same period last year. In addition, more than 360,000 people have been forced to flee their homes by gangs that control 80% of Port-au-Prince.
Kidnappings are also common, with targets including American missionaries.
In October 2021, gang members kidnapped seventeen missionaries, most of them American citizens. Many in the group, including 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-run school near Port-au-Prince. They were released almost two weeks later.
The U.S. State Department has long had a “do not travel” advisory for Haiti and is urging 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. They said it aimed to help with “the nation’s greatest need: its children.”
A May 2023 newsletter on the mission website stated that Natalie “has helped with the children at the House of Compassion and assisted at our ACE school. Davy has worked on many much needed projects around our property including building a laundry room and repairing bathrooms.
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Coto reported from San Juan, Puerto Rico. AP writer Jim Salter in O’Fallon, Missouri contributed to this report.