Looting and killings in Haiti

2004-02-27 18:06

Port-Au-Prince - Looting and killings were reported in the Haitian capital on Friday as loyalists of President Jean Bertrand Aristide manned barricades and vowed to beat back an expected rebel assault.

Hundreds of people were seen looting warehouses at the port and the bodies of at least three men - all shot in the head execution-style - lay in pools of blood on a street in Port-au-Prince's Poupelard and Christ-Roi neighbourhoods, said journalists.

The hands of one of the men were bound in plastic handcuffs and none had belts or shoelaces indicating that they might have been prisoners. Residents of the neighborhood said they had no idea who the dead were.

More bodies were reported on other streets as trucks carrying armed men toured the capital chanting and threatening inhabitants already fearful of an attack by rebels who have vowed to oust Aristide.

Motorist's vehicle stoned

Banks and most other businesses were closed and there was virtually no traffic in the city centre where increasingly violent pro-Aristide gangs have been stopping vehicles and searching motorists.

There were some attacks on people in cars and one motorist said he had been "lucky to escape alive" after his vehicle was stoned.

In the middle-class suburb of Petionville, only one bank was open and there was a long queue outside. Many petrol stations were closed because there was no fuel.

The surge in violence came as the rebels seized Mirebalais, only 57km northeast of Port-au-Prince in the early hours, freeing 67 prisoners at the local jail.

Many of the rebels are former soldiers in Haiti's armed forces which Aristide disbanded in 1995.

- AFP