Three missionaries in Haiti are killed in gang attack
An Oklahoma-based missionary group working in Haiti’s capital was attacked by gangs Thursday night, leaving two Americans and the group’s director dead, the organization, Missions in Haiti, announced on Facebook.
Missions in Haiti runs a school for 450 children, as well as two churches and a children’s home in the Bon Repos neighborhood in the northern outskirts of Port-au-Prince, which is widely known to be controlled by two local gangs.
The independent nonprofit was founded by an Oklahoma couple, David and Alicia Lloyd, in 2000.
The attack occurred Thursday, after two different groups of gangs descended on the organization’s compound, 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 state Rep. Ben Baker of Missouri.
“My heart is broken in a thousand pieces,” Baker posted on Facebook. “I’ve never felt this kind of pain. Most of you know my daughter and son-in-law Davy and Natalie Lloyd are full time missionaries in Haiti. They were attacked by gangs this evening and were both killed. They went to Heaven together.”
The Lloyds were coming out of a section of the mission’s compound when they were ambushed by three trucks full of men, according to David Lloyd Jr., whose son was killed.
The younger Lloyd was taken inside and beaten, his father said. The gang members then took the organization’s vehicles and other items and left. But things took a turn when a second gang showed up, and one of its members was killed.
“Now this gang went into full attack mode,” the organization said in a post that was written before the three had been killed.
The Lloyds and the director of the program were able to make calls using a satellite internet link and recount what was happening as it was occurring, describing how they were holed up as the gang members shot through the windows.
The elder Lloyd, who had just left Haiti a day earlier to return to the United States, said he last spoke to his son “right in the middle of it all.”
His son had been struck on the head with a pistol and was trying to calm the situation, Lloyd said.
“One group came in, 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.
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