US missionaries killed by Haiti gangs – DW – 25.05.2024

A Haitian gang has killed three missionaries, including a married couple from the United States, in Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti.

Missions in Haiti, an Oklahoma-based nonprofit founded in 2000, said Davy and Natalie Lloyd and the mission group’s local leader, Jude Montis, were killed by gunmen Thursday night.

Children of a senator from Missouri among the dead

Natalie’s father is Missouri State Senator Ben Baker, and Davy is the son of David and Alicia Lloyd, who founded Missions in Haiti in 2000.

“My heart is shattered into a thousand pieces. I have never felt such pain,” Baker said in a Facebook post. He later posted that their bodies had been recovered and they were working to bring them back to the United States.

Missions in Haiti reported that the couple were leaving a church when they were ambushed by three truckloads of gang members. They took David to a house, attacked him and robbed him.

While people were helping to untie Davy Lloyd, another group of armed men appeared and “went into full attack mode.”

The couple and Montis fled to a house belonging to the mission. “They tried to take cover there, but the gang shot at the house.”

The mission group later confirmed that all three were dead.

Security situation in Haiti

A spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said it was “just another example of the violence that spares no one in Haiti.”

Haiti has been experiencing unrest and violence under unstable political conditions for months. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the country is on the verge of becoming a failed state.

Haiti has finally reopened its international airport in the capital Port-au-Prince after months of closure due to gang violence, but gangs still control much of the country.

The gangs’ biggest demand was the resignation of Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who has since resigned from office. Haiti has been without a sitting president and parliament since the assassination of Jovenel Moise in 2021.

A transitional council has been convened to hold elections, the country’s first since 2016. Meanwhile, food shortages, the collapse of the health system and violence have forced thousands to flee their homes.

In response to the deaths, the White House called for the rapid deployment of a Kenyan-led multinational force to Haiti to curb rampant gang violence.

“The security situation in Haiti cannot wait,” a National Security Council spokesman said, stressing that President Joe Biden had pledged in talks with Kenya’s president on Thursday to support the “accelerated deployment” of the force.