An armed gang in Haiti has claimed to have killed 14 policemen in a shootout with the authorities who tried to retake control of Haiti's fourth largest city.
Journalists at the scene said the firefight erupted when a police caravan tried to enter Gonaives to take it back from an armed gang that took control of the city on Friday and is demanding that embattled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide quit.
Local radio reports yesterday quoted rebels as saying 14 policemen were killed in the fighting with members of the Front for Aristide's Departure in the port city about 105 miles from the capital, Port-au-Prince.
It was not immediately possible to confirm the death toll, and there were no reports of rebel casualties.
There were conflicting reports over which side controlled Gonaives.
The crisis in Gonaives has come on top of months of sometimes violent demonstrations in Port-au-Prince and other cities in the impoverished Caribbean nation of 8 million people, mostly organised by Aristide opponents calling on him to quit.
The president's political foes accuse him of corruption and mismanagement. But the former Roman Catholic priest, once widely hailed as a leader of the country's fledgling democracy, also now faces a serious threat from armed opponents.
In the capital, Aristide told a crowd in the capital's slum of Cite Soleil that police were entering Gonaives to regain order, and said the government would "disarm the terrorists."
Government spokesman Mario Dupuy said on local radio stations that the police were once again in control of Gonaives. But rebel spokesman Wynter Etienne told radio stations that his forces maintained control.
Gunmen from the Front for Aristide's Departure stormed the Gonaives police station on Thursday and the Red Cross said at least seven people were killed in a shoot-out there. On Friday, the group, whose members number several hundred, burned down the mayor's home and released scores of prisoners.