By The opinion
May 24, 2024, 18:26 PM EDT
Two Americans and Haitian from an Oklahoma-based missionary group, including the daughter and son-in-law of a Missouri state representative, were shot to death in a gang attack in Haiti as they left an event at a church, Missions in Haiti, the organization to which they belonged, said Friday.
The missionaries died at the hands of armed bandits who attacked an orphanage that houses dozens of children in Lison 49, in Plaine, north of Port-au-Prince, under the control of armed gangs for several months, the organization Missions in Haiti confirmed this Friday. .
Two of them are the daughter and son-in-law of Missouri legislator Ben Baker, as reported this Friday by the same politician through social networks.
“My heart is broken into a thousand pieces. I have never felt this kind of pain,” the Republican legislator, a member of the local state House of Representatives, wrote on Facebook.
Baker’s daughter, Natalie, and her husband, Davy Lloyd, were in the country serving as missionaries when they were attacked by an armed gang.
Haiti is experiencing a spiral of violence with massacres, attacks, rapes and kidnappings at the hands of powerful armed gangs, a situation that has worsened since the end of last February.
“They went to heaven together. Please pray for my family, we desperately need strength. And please pray for the Lloyd family as well. “I have no other words for now,” Baker added.
The State Department is aware of “reports of deaths of U.S. citizens in Haiti,” a spokesperson said, and is “ready to provide all appropriate consular assistance.”
The news was shared through social networks by former president and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
“God bless Davy and Natalie. What a tragedy. Haiti is totally out of control. “Find the killers NOW!!!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
In March, the State Department issued a travel advisory urging Americans not to travel to Haiti due to its “unpredictable and dangerous” security conditions.
Natalie and Davy married in August 2022 and moved to Haiti three months later, according to the young woman’s Instagram account.
On social networks it is seen how they worked mainly with Haitian children for the NGO Missions in Haiti Inc., which was founded by Davy’s parents, David and Alicia Lloyd, in 2000.
The interim government of Haiti announced last Wednesday that extends the curfew for seven more days in the department of Oeste, where the capital is located and where the state of emergency also governs to try to stop the violence.
The curfew accompanies the state of emergency extended for one month between May 9 and June 8 with the aim of restoring order and taking appropriate measures to regain control of the situation in the face of the high levels of insecurity caused by the armed gangs that control a large part of Port-au-Prince and other areas.
In order to help put a stop to violence in Haiti, where insecurity caused some 8,000 deaths last year, a multinational security support mission, led by Kenya and approved by Kenya, will imminently arrive in this Caribbean country. good from the UN.
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