Rebels sharpened their attacks and aid workers prepared for the worst as suspense grew in a bloody insurrection that has left at least 49 people dead.
Roadblocks have halted most food shipments since rebels trying to oust Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide seized this city last week and torched police stations in 10 other towns.
"The problem is very grave," said Raoul Elysee, of the Haitian Red Cross, meeting with rebels and aid officials to discuss ways to deliver food, medicine and fuel. He said emergency supplies of flour, cooking oil and other basics would run out in four days.
In Washington, Western Hemisphere nations called on all parties Friday to quickly implement confidence-building measures to ensure a peaceful, democratic outcome.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell said Aristide's verbal assurances have not been enough.
"What we need now is action," Powell said after meeting with hemispheric colleagues.
Aristide, he said, "must reach out to the opposition, to make sure that thugs are not allowed to break up peaceful demonstrations."
On Thursday, Aristide militants hurled rocks and blocked a protest route to crush an opposition demonstration in Port-au-Prince, the capital.
The government said between 7 and a dozen attackers have been arrested, but a foreign technical adviser to the police said there have been no arrests.
Powell said the US and other hemispheric countries agree on the need for a constitutional outcome. "We will accept no outcome that, in any way, attempts to remove the elected president of Haiti," he said.
Opposition politicians refuse to participate in elections to rectify flawed 2000 balloting, swept by Aristide's party, unless Haiti's leader steps down. He refuses.
The rebels say they will only lay down their weapons if they oust Aristide.
Many who once backed Aristide have turned on him as poverty deepens while the president's clique enjoys lavish lifestyles that some charge are funded by corruption.
At the hospital in Gonaives, the fourth-largest city where the rebellion erupted Feb. 5, more than a dozen people waited to see doctors who never showed up. The Red Cross warned the unrest was jeopardizing urgent health care needs.
Relatives took patients from the hospital after the fighting broke out, carrying them on their backs or on motorcycles, said Cerrament Herat, 68, a hospital janitor.
Only one badly malnourished man remained in the hospital Friday, lying unattended in a bed.
Pierre Joseph, another janitor, said doctors were afraid to return following a gun battle at the hospital a week ago, when police stormed in carrying a wounded officer.
With rebels in pursuit and officers in a panic, the police opened fire inside the hospital, killing at least three civilian bystanders who were trying to hide in the building, he said.
Rebels dragged a wounded officer from the hospital and stoned him to death, smashing in his head, according to an AP photographer. Police had tried to retake the city, but failed.
‘CROSSING THE LINE’: China’s embassy in Seoul criticized US Forces Korea Commander General Xavier Brunson, asking if his ‘hostile’ remarks were authorized by Washington South Korea and the US are in talks over recent public remarks by the commander of US Forces Korea, Seoul’s presidential office said yesterday, after the comments drew sharp criticism from China. In a recent podcast interview, US Forces Korea Commander General Xavier Brunson described South Korea as “the dagger in the heart of Asia” from China’s east coast, prompting the Chinese embassy in Seoul to say that he had “truly crossed the line.” The interview came amid growing speculation that Washington might seek to expand the role of US Forces Korea in countering the growing regional influence of China, a key
Through the noise of rushing papers and whirring belts at a print factory in Kyoto, two creators watch their photo essay come to life in broadsheet form — part of an effort to win new audiences in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). Despite the decline of the publishing industry, self-publication and handmade “zine” magazines are growing in popularity in Japan, reflecting the nation’s enduring love of paper in the digital era. While speaking to Agence France-Presse at the plant, his hands black with ink, one of the creators, Kazuma Obara, said: “I think [paper] is a medium that engages all five
Australian researchers have trained lab-grown brain cells on a silicon computer chip to play the 1990s shooter game Doom and said they are just scratching the surface of what the neurons could be capable of doing. It is the science-fiction work of biotech boffins at Cortical Labs, who researched and developed the technology that harnesses the workings of the brain’s networking system. Each so-called “biological computer” contains about 200,000 living human brain cells, grown from stem cells that were harvested from blood donations. Having mastered the simple computer game Pong, where a paddle is moved up and down to send a ball
France experienced its hottest spring on record, the French weather service said on Tuesday, after an exceptional early heat wave that also broke highs for the season in England and Wales. Meteo-France said the average nationwide temperature over March to May was 13.8°C — about 1.7°C above the norm, and surpassing records set in 2011 and 2020. “The warmest spring since records began in 1900,” it said in a bulletin. All three months were warmer than average, but the onset of an “unprecedented heatwave” late last month pushed the mercury to highs typically seen at the height of the summer. “Our country had never
RSS