Three missionaries killed in gang attack in Haiti

An Oklahoma-based mission group working in Haiti’s capital was attacked by gangs on Thursday evening, killing two Americans and the group’s leader, the organization Missions in Haiti said on Facebook.

Missions in Haiti runs a school for 450 children, as well as two churches and an orphanage in the Bon Repos neighborhood on the northern outskirts of Port-au-Prince, which is known to be controlled by two local gangs.

The independent nonprofit organization was founded in 2000 by David and Alicia Lloyd, a married couple from Oklahoma.

The attack occurred on Thursday after two separate gang groups entered the organization’s premises, attacked employees and stole the organization’s vehicles.

The victims were the founders’ son, David Lloyd III, 23, known as Davy, his wife Natalie Lloyd, 21, and the organization’s Haitian director, Jude Montis, 45, the group said. Natalie Lloyd is the daughter of Congressman Ben Baker from Missouri.

“My heart is broken into a thousand pieces,” Baker posted on Facebook. “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.”

According to David Lloyd Jr., whose son was killed, the Lloyds were leaving part of the mission grounds when they were ambushed by three trucks full of men.

The younger Lloyd was taken inside and beaten, his father said. The gang members then took the organization’s vehicles and other belongings and disappeared. But things took a turn when a second gang showed up and one of its members was killed.

“Now this gang has gone into attack mode,” said a post by the organization written before the three were killed.

The Lloyds and the program’s director were able to speak live via satellite internet and describe the events, describing how they barricaded themselves in as the gang members shot through the windows.

The elder Lloyd, who had left Haiti just a day earlier to return to the United States, said he last spoke to his son “in the thick of it.”

His son was hit on the head with a gun and tried to calm the situation, Lloyd said.

“A group came, tied him up, beat him and stole my trucks and loaded them up with everything they could,” Lloyd told The New York Times in a telephone interview from Oklahoma.