Two young American missionaries were murdered in Haiti on Thursday amid the continuing crisis of gang violence that has overwhelmed the country.
Davy and Natalie Lloyd and a Haitian staff member and church leader named Jude Montis were ambushed by three trucks stuffed with gang members while coming out of a youth group service at Missions in Haiti in Port-au-Prince, according to the missionary organization’s Facebook page. While the armed men were stealing several vehicles and loading them up with loot from the mission, one other gang arrived and the 2 groups violently clashed.
“Not sure what took place but one was shot and killed and now this gang went into full attack mode,” a missionary receiving reports within the US wrote. “Davy, Natalie and Jude [were] in my house at the tip of the property using the star link web to call me. So they’re holed up in there, the gangs [have] shot all of the windows out of the home and proceed to shoot.”
Missions in Haiti reportedly tried to contact Haitian police without success. Then the phone lines went down.
“PLEASE PRAY,” Missions in Haiti asked its 4,500 Facebook followers. “Going to be an extended night.”
By 9 p.m., the orphanage was on fire and the Lloyds and Montis were dead.
Montis was 20. Davy was 23. Natalie, 21.
“My heart is broken in a thousand pieces,” wrote Natalie’s father, Missouri State House Rep. Ben Baker. “I’ve never felt this sort of pain.”
Criminal gangs killed nearly 5,000 people in Haiti last 12 months. Then, in 2024, the gangs banded together, turned against the politicians who had once collaborated with them for power, and launched coordinated attacks on the federal government. The gangs set police stations on fire, shut down the important airport and seaport, and broke open two prisons, releasing an estimated 4,000 inmates. They vandalized government offices, stormed the National Palace, and took control of about 80 percent of the capital.
“Now they’re an influence to themselves,” Robert Fatton, professor of presidency and foreign affairs on the University of Virginia, told the Associated Press. “The autonomy of the gangs has reached a critical point. It is why they’re capable now of imposing certain conditions on the federal government itself.”
The prime minister resigned in April and a brief governing council was arrange and tasked with quelling the violence and restoring order.
A UN-approved peacekeeping mission of 1,000 Kenyan law enforcement officials has been repeatedly delayed. Two hundred of them were imagined to land on Thursday—as Kenyan president William Ruto met with US president Joe Biden on the White House—however the flight from Nairobi was canceled on the last minute.
The law enforcement officials got no explanation for the delay and told to face by, according to Reuters, because they could leave at any moment. US officials have said the force lacks the mandatory armored vehicles, helicopters, guns, and communications equipment needed for the deployment.
The American government has committed $300 million to the mission. Since April, the US has evacuated a whole lot of American residents by helicopter, and plenty of nonprofits have coordinated emergency exits as well. Not everyone was capable of leave, nonetheless, and a few selected to not.
Missions in Haiti told supporters in March that their area of Port-au-Prince was quiet and that the missionaries weren’t concerned for his or her safety.
The organization was began by Davy Lloyd’s parents, David and Alicia, in 2000. The mission primarily served children—offering food, education, and spiritual guidance. In 2002, about 100 kids attended Missions in Haiti’s summer Bible school program and, that fall, there have been 10 children on the orphanage and one other 30 enrolled in the college.
The school has grown to serve greater than 400 children within the last 24 years, in response to reports to financial supporters. And the mission has also expanded, starting a church and a bakery that employs graduates.
The spiraling violence in Haiti began to concern David Lloyd in 2022.
“There just isn’t a functioning government, the nation of Haiti is in total anarchy,” the elder Lloyd wrote. “These gangs murder, rape, steal and destroy at will.”
He reported that Missions in Haiti was nearly taken over by “certainly one of the wickedest gangs” but “we went to our knees and God intervened in a miraculous way and turned that gang back!”
The missionaries remained hopeful and asked their supporters to wish and write their US representatives.
Davy and Natalie Lloyd joined Missions in Haiti in 2022, after graduating from Ozark Bible Institute, a Holiness-Pentecostal school, and getting married.
Davy, who grew up on the mission, threw himself into maintenance projects, remodeling dormitory bathrooms, fixing vehicles, and constructing a recent laundry room.
He told supporters that, coming back, he could see the larger problems plaguing Haiti more clearly than he could as a child going to highschool and church, caring for the chickens and fiddling with his Haitian friends.
“My eyes are more open,” the younger Lloyd said in a video shared by Missions in Haiti. “Really, we’d like a miracle. We need God to maneuver.”
Natalie worked within the orphanage and cared for youngsters. She shared images of ministry on the couple’s Instagram: repainting playground equipment, giving kids mangoes and coconuts, and teaching them concerning the full armor of God.
The young missionary expressed some concern for the political situation in Haiti, but focused more on her delight at serving children and her trust in God.
“God is all the time faithful to His guarantees. He is unchanging & He never wavers,” she wrote. “I need to place my hope within the One who never fails, the One whose mercies are recent every morning, the One who, when seasons change, He stays the identical.”
A number of days before the attack by the 2 groups of gangs, the missionaries expressed hope that help was coming and order might soon be restored. They saw US military planes fly overhead several times a day, presumably bringing in equipment for the Kenyan forces. The airport reopened and gang activity appeared to be lessening, in response to the Missions in Haiti’s Facebook page.
“Gang Rule could possibly be ending soon,” David Lloyd wrote. “We are praying this may occur and the earlier the higher. Thank you on your continued prayers.”
