Peacekeepers Among Dead in Haiti Clashes

U.N. troops and ex-soldiers from Haiti's disbanded army fought two gunbattles on Sunday, leaving two peacekeepers and at least two former soldiers dead in the deadliest day for the 10-month-old U.N. mission, officials said. The Sri Lankan and Nepalese soldiers who died were the first peacekeepers killed in clashes since the U.N. force arrived in June 2004 to try and stabilize the impoverished, volatile nation, officials said. The Sri Lankan was killed and three other peacekeepers wounded in a raid on a police station occupied by armed ex-soldiers in Petit-Goave, about 45 miles west of Port-au-Prince, U.N. spokesman Toussaint Kongo-Doudou said. Two ex-soldiers died and 10 others were wounded. The U.N. troops entered Petit-Goave before dawn. Using a loudspeaker, the Brazilian commander of U.N. troops in Haiti, Lt. Gen. Augusto Heleno Ribeiro, tried for 20 minutes to get the former soldiers to surrender peacefully when they opened fire on U.N. troops, Kongo-Doudou said. "We wanted to resolve this peacefully, but our troops received a hostile response from the insurgents and so they responded with force," he said. [more]