An Oklahoma-based mission group working in Haiti’s capital was attacked by gangs Thursday night, leaving two Americans and the group’s director dead, the Haiti Missions organization 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 on the northern outskirts of Port-au-Prince, which is widely known to be controlled by two local gangs. The independent nonprofit organization was founded by an Oklahoma couple, David and Alicia Lloyd, in 2000.
The attack occurred on Thursday, after two different gang groups invaded 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. Ms. Lloyd is the daughter of a state representative in Missouri, Ben Baker.
“My heart is broken into a million pieces,” Baker posted on Facebook. “I have never felt this kind of pain. Most of you know that my daughter and son-in-law Davy and Natalie Lloyd are full-time missionaries in Haiti. This afternoon they were attacked by gangs and both were killed. “They went to heaven together.”
The Lloyds were leaving a section of the mission compound when they were ambushed by three truckloads of men, according to David Lloyd Jr., whose son was killed.
Young Lloyd was taken inside and beaten, his father said. Then the gang members took the vehicles and other elements of the organization and left. But things changed when a second gang appeared and one of its members was murdered.
“Now this gang has gone into full attack mode,” the organization said in a post written before the three were killed.
The Lloyds and the program director were able to make calls over a satellite Internet link and tell what was happening as it happened, describing how they were hiding while gang members shot out the windows.
The elder Mr. 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 everything.” His son had been hit in the head with a gun and was trying to calm the situation, Lloyd said.
“A group came in, tied him up, beat him, stole my trucks and loaded them with everything they could,” Lloyd told The Times in a telephone interview from Oklahoma.
His son managed to untie himself while neighbors tried to help.
“And then all of a sudden another group comes along and that’s where things got complicated,” Lloyd said. “I was talking to him when the next group arrived. And he told me that they shot him in the head. He says, ‘I have to go now.’ There are a lot of them here again.’”
Lloyd said he wasn’t sure what happened next, but that witnesses told him one of the organization’s security guards may have fired his gun.
“Someone got nervous and someone got shot, so they felt like it was my son’s fault,” Lloyd said.
The incident was recounted in real time on Facebook, with Mr Lloyd and his wife saying they were trying to rescue everyone and negotiate with the gangs. Then the phone lines went silent and they posted an update that three of them had been killed.
The victim’s parents described their son as a devout Christian dedicated to Haiti.
“My son grew up in Haiti. It was his whole life,” the victim’s mother, Alicia Lloyd, said in an interview. “All he wanted to do was go back to Haiti and help people.”
After attending Ozark Bible College and Institute in Missouri, the same Pentecostal college his father attended, Lloyd III decided to return to Haiti, his parents said.
The younger Mr. Lloyd told the girls he knew: “’Don’t talk to me if you’re not interested in living in Haiti for the rest of your life,’” Lloyd Jr. said. “He said he loved Haiti and that It was his heart.”
Even when most Americans working in Port-au-Prince were evacuated by the U.S. Embassy in March after a gang assault on the city closed the airport, the younger Lloyds decided to stay. Port-au-Prince airport reopened this week after being closed for months. They still stayed.
Lloyd said he told his son he could fly home for a break Wednesday after the airport reopened, but he declined the offer.
“He just had a heart for the Haitian people,” she said.
Mr. Montis, the pastor, had been with the organization for 20 years. He left behind a wife and two children, a 6-year-old girl and a 2-year-old boy.
“One of the best guys I’ve ever met,” Lloyd said.
The elder Mr Lloyd said they had frequent dealings with gang leaders, who respected their work.
Despite the scourge of killings in recent months, he said the area had been relatively peaceful in recent weeks. He even regularly fed gang members bread from the organization’s bakery, he said, adding that it was customary to have to pay them to pass roadblocks.
The gang leaders, he said, told him: “‘We appreciate you helping people.’
“That’s why we feel safe.”
Haiti has been hit by a large-scale gang attack since February, when several gangs that normally fight each other decided to unite and fight the government. Hospitals, government buildings, police stations and prisons were attacked, and thousands of prisoners were freed.
The crisis forced the resignation of Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who was out of the country at the time and unable to return. A transitional council was appointed to run the ailing government, while the United States helped organize a deployment of police and soldiers from several countries, led by Kenya, to fight the gangs. That mission is expected to arrive in the coming weeks.
Gang violence spread to unprecedented levels after the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in 2021. According to the United Nations, more than 2,500 people were killed or injured in the first three months of 2024 alone.
A spokesman for the Haitian National Police said he had no details about the killings.
The US State Department said it was aware of reports of deaths of US citizens in Haiti and was willing to provide consular assistance, but had no further comment.
“We offer our deepest condolences to the family for their loss,” the State Department said in a statement.
In October 2021, 17 Christian Aid Ministries missionaries, 16 Americans and one Canadian, were kidnapped by a gang after visiting an orphanage. Twelve of the hostages escaped and the others were freed.
The United States has offered a reward of five million dollars for the capture of the various leaders of the gangs responsible.
In February, armed bandits also kidnapped three sisters of the Saint-Joseph de Cluny congregation from a Catholic orphanage in Port-au-Prince. They were released unharmed and without paying a ransom.
