At least four people were wounded by gunshots on Thursday as police clashed with supporters of Haitian ex-president Jean Bertrand Aristide after security forces dispersed demonstrators outside the presidential palace in Port-au-Prince.
Heavy gunfire was heard late in the evening near the center of the capital, and there were unconfirmed reports that two people had been killed in the central market street Grand Rue.
"We have treated four people for bullet wounds. Other hospitals probably have more," said Frandze Augustin Charlier, a doctor at the Canape Vert Hospital in the Haitian capital.
PHOTO: AFP
"There was shooting in all directions," said Rodson Josselin, whose 54-year-old-mother suffered bullet wounds to the head and the right arm. He said his mother, a storeowner in the Grand Rue, was not involved in the protest.
He said several by-standers were caught in the crossfire between security forces and members of the pro-Aristide "People's Organizations," known as OPs.
Several people in the Grand Rue said two people had been shot dead and that the bodies had been removed, though there was no immediate confirmation of the claim.
This happened as Aristide supporters went on a rampage in the city center, hurling rocks at cars and setting up burning barricades, after police used teargas to disperse them as they protested outside the palace following a two-hour march through nearby slums.
One woman was given first aid by demonstrators in a street near the palace after being shot in the right arm.
"I was shot by the police," Nadia Joseph, 19, told AFP, as a motorist took her to a hospital.
"I was in the demonstration when I was shot," Joseph said.
At least two bursts of automatic weapons fire and isolated gunshots could be heard as the demonstrators scattered.
After the protesters left, two French military trucks briefly moved into position outside the palace.
Earlier in the day, newly-named Prime Minister Gerard Latortue had a first meeting with Boniface Alexandre, who was sworn in as interim president hours after Aristide resigned and fled to the Central African Republic on Feb. 29.
"We are on the same wavelength, we will work together toward national reconciliation," said Latortue, 69, who returned from Miami on Wednesday and is expected to announce a new government on Saturday.
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
Asian perspectives of the US have shifted from a country once perceived as a force of “moral legitimacy” to something akin to “a landlord seeking rent,” Singaporean Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen (黃永宏) said on the sidelines of an international security meeting. Ng said in a round-table discussion at the Munich Security Conference in Germany that assumptions undertaken in the years after the end of World War II have fundamentally changed. One example is that from the time of former US president John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address more than 60 years ago, the image of the US was of a country
BLIND COST CUTTING: A DOGE push to lay off 2,000 energy department workers resulted in hundreds of staff at a nuclear security agency being fired — then ‘unfired’ US President Donald Trump’s administration has halted the firings of hundreds of federal employees who were tasked with working on the nation’s nuclear weapons programs, in an about-face that has left workers confused and experts cautioning that the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE’s) blind cost cutting would put communities at risk. Three US officials who spoke to The Associated Press said up to 350 employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) were abruptly laid off late on Thursday, with some losing access to e-mail before they’d learned they were fired, only to try to enter their offices on Friday morning
CONFIDENT ON DEAL: ‘Ukraine wants a seat at the table, but wouldn’t the people of Ukraine have a say? It’s been a long time since an election, the US president said US President Donald Trump on Tuesday criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and added that he was more confident of a deal to end the war after US-Russia talks. Trump increased pressure on Zelenskiy to hold elections and chided him for complaining about being frozen out of talks in Saudi Arabia. The US president also suggested that he could meet Russian President Vladimir Putin before the end of the month as Washington overhauls its stance toward Russia. “I’m very disappointed, I hear that they’re upset about not having a seat,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida when asked about the Ukrainian
RSS