PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — A U.S. missionary couple and a Haitian man working with them were shot dead by gang members in Haiti's capital after they were attacked as they left a youth group activity at a local church, a family member said Friday.

The attack occurred Thursday evening in the municipality of Lizon, north of Port-au-Prince, Lionel Lazarre, head of a Haitian police union, told the Associated Press.

The killings came as the capital crumbles under relentless attacks from violent gangs that control 80 percent of Port-au-Prince, while authorities await the arrival of a police force from Kenya, part of a United Nations-backed mission to curb gang violence in the troubled Caribbean nation.

Two of the victims were a young married couple, Davy and Natalie Lloyd, according to a Facebook post by Natalie Lloyd's father, Missouri State Rep. Ben Baker. The third victim was Jude Montis, the head of Missions In Haiti Inc.

“My heart is broken into a thousand pieces,” Baker wrote on Facebook on Thursday. “I have never felt such pain. Most of you know that my daughter and son-in-law, Davy and Natalie Lloyd, are full-time missionaries in Haiti. They were attacked by gangs tonight and both killed. They went to heaven together.”

Hannah Cornett, Davy Lloyd's sister, told AP that her brother was 23 and Natalie Lloyd was 21. They planned to celebrate their second anniversary in June and his birthday in early July.

Cornett said her parents were full-time missionaries in Haiti and she and her two brothers grew up there.

“Davy spoke Creole before he spoke English. That was my home,” she said in a telephone interview. “Haiti was all we knew.”

Cornett, 22, said her parents ran an orphanage, school and church in Haiti, and she and her brothers grew up with the orphans: “It was just one big, happy family there.”

She said her older brother was outgoing, had a garden and raised many animals. He returned to the United States to attend Bible school, but eventually got married and returned to Haiti with Natalie Lloyd to do more humanitarian work.

“They just had a great love for Haiti and wanted to help the people there,” Cornett said. “That's their calling.”

Cornett noted that Montis worked with her parents for 20 years and left behind two children, ages two and six.

She said that on the night of the attack, three vehicles carrying gang members stopped the Lloyds and Montis as they were crossing the street and hit her brother on the head with the muzzle of a gun. They forced him to go up the stairs, stole their belongings and left him tied up. While people were helping to untie Davy Lloyd, another group of armed men showed up.

“Nobody knows what happened,” she said.

An unidentified person was shot and the gunmen opened fire as the Lloyds and Montis fled into the home where their parents live, Cornett said.

“They tried to take cover there, but the gang shot at the house,” she said, adding that they were killed and their bodies set on fire.

Cornett said her mother flew back from Haiti about a month ago and her father and younger brother flew out on Wednesday because the neighborhood was so quiet.

“Nobody expected this to happen,” she said through tears.

On Friday afternoon, Baker posted on Facebook that the bodies of Davy and Natalie Lloyd had been safely transported to the U.S. Embassy.

The couple worked for Missions In Haiti Inc. The Claremore, Oklahoma-based organization was founded by David and Alicia Lloyd, Davy Lloyd's parents. Natalie Lloyd's Facebook page states that the couple married on June 18, 2022, and that she began working for the mission organization in August 2022. She frequently posted photos of Haitian children on her page.

A Facebook post on the Missions in Haiti page late Thursday said: “Around midnight: Davy, Natalie and Jude were shot by the gang around 9pm tonight. We are all devastated.”

Alicia Lloyd, Davy Lloyd's mother, told the Oklahoma newspaper Claremore Daily Progress that her son was “one of those people who could do anything.”

“I hope something good can come out of this. We don't see that now, but we don't want (her life) to have been in vain,” she was quoted as saying.

US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said the ambassador to Haiti was in contact with the families, “who we know are experiencing unimaginable grief.”

“Unfortunately, this is a reminder that the security situation in Haiti cannot wait – too many innocent lives are being lost,” he said in a statement, citing the US government's commitment to a rapid deployment of the Kenyan-led mission.

It was not immediately clear which gang or gangs were responsible for the fatal shootings.

However, a gang leader named Chyen Mechan, which means “bad dog” in Haitian, controls the area where the shooting took place. His real name is Claudy Célestin and he is a dismissed official from the Haitian Ministry of the Interior.

The leader of another gang, General Jeff, also controls an area near the neighborhood where the couple was killed. Both gangs are part of a coalition called Viv Ansanm, which means “living together.”

The coalition is responsible for large-scale attacks on key government infrastructure since February 29. Gunmen have attacked police stations, opened fire on the main international airport, which was closed for nearly three months before reopening earlier this week, and stormed Haiti's two largest prisons, freeing more than 4,000 inmates.

According to the United Nations, gangs are also blamed for killing or injuring more than 2,500 people in Haiti between January and March, a 50 percent increase over the same period last year. In addition, more than 360,000 people have been forced to flee by gangs that control 80 percent of Port-au-Prince.

Kidnappings are also commonplace and are also directed against US missionaries.

In October 2021, gang members kidnapped 17 missionaries, most of them U.S. citizens. Many of the group's members, including five children, were held captive for more than two months before escaping.

In July 2023, gangs kidnapped an American nurse and her daughter from the campus of a Christian school near Port-au-Prince. They were released less than two weeks later.

The US State Department has long issued a travel warning for Haiti and is urging all US citizens in the country to leave as soon as possible.

On the Missions In Haiti website, the founders wrote that the organization was founded in 2000. Its goal is to “help with what the country needs most – its children.”

A May 2023 newsletter posted on the mission website states that Natalie has been “helping with the children at the House of Compassion and assisting in our ACE school. Davy has been working on many much-needed projects on our grounds,” including building a laundry room and repairing bathrooms.

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Coto reported from San Juan, Puerto Rico. AP writer Jim Salter in O'Fallon, Missouri, contributed to this report.