Looting and killings were reported in the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, 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 — shot in the head execution-style — lay in pools of blood on a street in Port-au-Prince’s Poupelard and Christ-Roi neighbourhoods, AFP journalists said.
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 neighbourhood 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 heightening the fears of inhabitants already bracing for an attack by rebels who have vowed to oust Aristide.
Banks and most other businesses were shuttered and there was virtually no traffic in the city centre where increasingly violent pro-Aristide gangs have been stopping vehicles, searching motorists and, in some cases, assaulting them.
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. — Sapa-AFP