Police say a US missionary couple was killed by gunmen in Haiti – NBC Boston

A U.S. missionary couple and a Haitian man who led a religious group were shot dead by members of a criminal gang in Haiti’s capital after they were kidnapped as they left a youth group event at a local church, a family member said Friday.

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

The killings came as the capital crumbles under relentless attacks from violent gangs that control 80 percent of Port-au-Prince, while authorities await the arrival of a police force from Kenya, part of a United Nations-backed mission to stem violence in the troubled Caribbean nation.

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

“My heart is broken into a thousand pieces,” Baker wrote on Facebook on Thursday. “I have never felt such 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 both killed. They went to heaven together.”

Hannah Cornett, Davy Lloyd’s sister, told AP that her 23-year-old brother and 21-year-old Natalie Lloyd will celebrate their second wedding 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. That was my home,” she said in a telephone interview. “Haiti was all we knew.”

Cornett, 22, said 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 Montis worked for her parents for 20 years and left behind two children, ages 2 and 6.

Cornett said that on the night of the attack, three vehicles filled with gang members stopped the Lloyds and Montis as they were crossing the street and hit their brother in the head with the muzzle of a gun. They forced him to go up the stairs, stole their belongings and left him tied up. While people were helping to untie Davy Lloyd, another group of armed men showed up.

The aid is intended to help bring the violent gangs in the troubled Caribbean state under control.

An unidentified person was shot and the gunmen opened fire as the Lloyds and Montis fled into the home where their parents live, Cornett said.

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

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-based organization was founded by David and Alicia Lloyd, Davy Lloyd’s parents. Natalie Lloyd’s Facebook page states that the couple married on June 18, 2022, and that she began working for 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 late Thursday said: “Around midnight: Davy, Natalie and Jude were shot by the gang around 9pm tonight. We are all devastated.”

Secretary of State Antony Blinken traveled to Kingston, Jamaica on Monday, where he discussed the escalating crisis in Haiti.

The US State Department said on Friday that it was aware of the killings. “We extend our sincere condolences to the family for their loss. We stand ready to provide any appropriate consular assistance. Out of respect for the family at this difficult time, we wish to make no further comment,” the ministry said.

It was not immediately clear which gang or gangs were responsible for the fatal shooting. However, a gang leader named Chyen Mechan, which means “bad dog” in Haitian, controls the area where the shooting took place. His real name is Claudy Célestin and he is a dismissed official from the Haitian Ministry of the Interior.

The leader of another gang, known as General Jeff, also controls an area near the neighborhood where the three were killed. Both gangs are part of a coalition called Viv Ansanm, which means “Living Together.”

The coalition is responsible for large-scale attacks on key government infrastructure that began in February this year. Gunmen have attacked police stations, opened fire on the main international airport – which was closed for nearly three months before reopening earlier this week – and stormed Haiti’s two largest prisons, freeing more than 4,000 inmates.

According to the United Nations, gangs are also blamed for the killing or injuring of more than 2,500 people in Haiti between January and March, a 50 percent increase over the same period last year. Kidnappings are also common, including of US missionaries.

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

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 less than two weeks later.

The US State Department has long issued a travel warning for Haiti and is urging all US citizens in the country to leave as soon as possible.

The Missions in Haiti website states that the organization was founded in 2000 and its goal is to “help with what the country needs most – its children.”

A May 2023 newsletter posted on the mission website states that Natalie has been “helping with the children at the House of Compassion and assisting in our ACE school. Davy has been working on many much-needed projects on our grounds,” including building a laundry room and repairing bathrooms.

Coto reported from San Juan, Puerto Rico. AP writer Jim Salter in O’Fallon, Missouri, contributed to this report.