Three missionaries, including a couple from the US, were killed in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, on Thursday night.
Davy and Natalie Lloyd “were attacked by gangs tonight and were both killed,” Natalie Lloyd’s father, Missouri state Rep. Ben Baker, said in a Facebook post. publish. “They went to heaven together.”
“Please pray for my family, we desperately need strength. And please pray for the Lloyd family as well,” Baker said.
The mission director, Jude Montis, 45, was also killed. All three worked for Missions in Haiti, Inc., which has been operated by Davy Lloyd’s parents for more than two decades, according to group website.
Davy Lloyd, 23, had “a love for Haiti,” his father David Lloyd told CNN. “His first language was Creole. He used to tell us when he was little that one day he would be a missionary in Haiti.”
He and Natalie Lloyd, 21, were ambushed as they left church in Port-au-Prince on Thursday night, according to David Lloyd.
“Davy was taken home tied up and beaten. The group then took our trucks, loaded everything they wanted and left,” a post on Missions in Haiti Facebook page said.
Three hours later, the organization posted that the three missionaries “were shot and killed by the gang around 9 o’clock this evening. We are all devastated.”
It is still unclear how exactly the missionaries were killed. The investigation into the murders is ongoing and Haitian police have not yet released any details about them.
The local emergency response service Haitian Emergency Response Operations (HERO) helped coordinate and manage the operation to recover the bodies and transport the remains of the American couple to a hospital morgue.
“We are currently working to recover the bodies of Natalie and Davy,” Baker said on social media Friday night, adding that the effort will involve obtaining a waiver. “After that, we have to find an airline that is willing to transport it. Prayers that everything goes well.”
He remembered the couple as people who put others before themselves, telling CNN on Friday night that he commends their bravery.
“I don’t think you can find a better example of people who really had a deep love for the people of Haiti and had a vision to help them in any way they could and made such a huge impact across the different ministries they were involved in. in,” Baker told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on “The Source.”
‘Our Last Call’
David Lloyd told CNN he was on the phone with his son during the attacks.
The mission and church across the street have two security guards, but when the 23-year-old left the church around 6 p.m., “three pickup trucks full of guys with guns immediately overwhelmed them,” he said.
The gunmen dragged Davy Lloyd home, tied him up and began ransacking the complex, according to his father, who said children from the orphanage were in the complex at the time.
After the gang left with their cargo, Davy Lloyd called his father.
“He was injured and he was injured. He was nervous and very scared,” said David Lloyd. “He was begging me to find someone to go in there and help him, and I did everything I could, but I couldn’t locate anyone.”
Then more armed men arrived, he said.
“He told me, ‘I have to go down, something else is going on. I need to see what it is,’” recalled David Lloyd. “That was basically our last call.”
Around that time, someone shot one of the newly arrived gang members, prompting a violent reaction, he said.
“Davy entered and barricaded himself in my personal home with his wife and (mission director) Jude Montis. The gang shot at that place until the door was broken down and shot at them, and set Davy and Jude on fire.
HERO, the ambulance service, confirmed to CNN that Davy Lloyd’s body was found burned at the scene.
Haitian police will work with international authorities to investigate the killings, police spokesman Gary Desrosiers told CNN on Friday.
“This is an open investigation, but we are confident that we will arrest those involved. For now, we are working to protect the public and community while actively searching for the perpetrators,” he said.
On the Haiti Missions website, Davy Lloyd can be seen talking about growing up in the Caribbean country and doing manual labor at the mission compound. He had previously survived a kidnapping in Port-au-Prince in 2005, when he was just 5 years old, his father said.
According to a report that year in the Tulsa World newspaper, Davy Lloyd, his sister and his adopted sister were kidnapped in a carjacking on their way home from school. But police were able to locate the kidnappers, rescue the children and quickly return them to their parents, according to the report.
“We got them back 21 hours later,” recalled David Lloyd.
‘The security situation in Haiti cannot wait’
In a statement to CNN on Friday, the White House said it was aware of the reports and expressed condolences, while also calling for the rapid deployment of a UN Security Council-approved international police force to the region.
“We are aware of reports of deaths of US citizens in Haiti. Our hearts go out to the families of those killed as they experience unimaginable pain,” a national security spokesperson told CNN.
“The security situation in Haiti cannot wait. That is why yesterday President Biden reiterated our commitment to support the acceleration of the deployment of the Multinational Security Support Mission (MSS) to strengthen the capabilities of the Haitian National Police to protect civilians, restore the rule of law and pave the way for democratic governance. ”
Missouri Republican Governor Mike Parson also lamented the couple’s loss on Friday morning X, calling it “absolutely heartbreaking news.”
So far, the area around the Haiti Missions complex has seemed fairly safe, despite the violence in the rest of the city, according to David Lloyd, who was in the country until a few days ago.
“We didn’t actually hear any shots in any of this. Our school is open, the church is open, the bakery has been selling bread every day,” she said.
When flights resumed last week to Toussaint Louverture International Airport in Port-au-Prince, Lloyd said he asked his son and daughter-in-law if they would like to leave Haiti, but they declined.
“We know that Haiti is a very volatile situation, we know it is dangerous,” he said. “But we had a good relationship with the groups in our region and they left us alone. But from what I understand, it was an outside group that initially came from about a kilometer away and that started it all.”
Natalie Lloyd’s father told CNN that the couple didn’t leave, even when they had the opportunity, because of the children they cared for.
“They made the decision to stay even when the situation got worse because they felt that if they left, these kids would have nowhere to go,” Baker said on “The Source.”
He believes the gangs’ initial attack was simply intended as a robbery, with the gangs trying to steal what they could before the arrival of the UN Multinational Security Support mission.
“We have a very large missionary complex, many things. With the international military force expected to arrive at any moment, I think the gangs are trying to get everything they can because they realize their times may be coming to an end,” he said.
At a joint press conference with Kenyan President William Ruto on Thursday, Biden defended the decision not to send US troops to Haiti, telling reporters it could raise “all kinds of questions that can easily be misrepresented.” for what we are trying to do, and can be used by those who disagree with us and against the interests of Haiti and the United States”, while also pointing to the material support, including equipment and training, that the US has already provided to face the crisis.
The Haiti Missions Facebook feed told the story of the increasingly dire conditions in the country this year. “Gangs are still fighting for more control and chaos rules,” says the organization posted April 23. “It seems like the world has turned its back on Haiti and will come under total gang control.”
This story and title have been updated with additional details.
CNN’s Donald Judd and Kaanita Iyer contributed to this report.
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