Exclusive: US brokered gang talks to secure American missionaries’ bodies in Haiti

The first US commercial flight to Haiti in months is making a bleak roundtrip Thursday, returning with the bodies of a young American couple who were killed by a gang in Port-au-Prince last week.

The first US commercial flight to Haiti in months is making a bleak roundtrip Thursday, returning with the bodies of a young American couple who were killed by a gang in Port-au-Prince last week. The remains of Davy and Natalie Lloyd will be accompanied by US Ambassador to Haiti Dennis Hankins and US security agents, according to a source with knowledge of the operation. They will be flown from Haiti to Miami, and onward to Kansas City. Their return follows a week of extraordinary negotiation between the US government and Haitian authorities, local organizations and even gang leaders, sources say – all in a city crippled by the criminal groups that have shut off the import of vital humanitarian supplies, destroyed medical facilities and blocked key roads. In a statement to CNN, a US State Department spokesperson confirmed that US officials in Haiti are “assisting, in line with the families’ wishes, with making arrangements to transport the deceased and personal effects back to the United States.” “We will continue to work around the clock until the remains are returned back to the United States,” the spokesperson added. This month’s reopening of Toussaint Louverture International Airport – a former target for coordinated gang attacks – marks an important step in connecting Haiti’s capital city to the rest of the world, after months of violence in the gang-ravaged Caribbean nation. Local carrier Sunrise resumed flights earlier in May.