Five killed as U N steps up Haiti slum operations

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Jan 26 (Reuters) At least five people were killed and six wounded after a United Nations peacekeeping force raided a volatile slum in the capital of impoverished Haiti this week, U N and hospital officials said today.

U N military spokesman Col. Abdesslam Elamarti said the force was building up its efforts to clear the Caribbean country's most dangerous slums of criminal gangs who still hold sway in parts of Port-au-Prince.

''We are now intensifying our operations in those areas where the gangs operate to make sure the people can go about their activities,'' Elamarti said.

He said four people were killed on Wednesday during clashes between U N troops and gunmen in Cite Soleil, a sprawling shantytown run by warring gangs and so overcrowded that some residents sleep in shifts. It was not clear whether those killed were gang members or civilians caught in the cross fire.

''We were conducting an operation to take over a building used by the bandits to launch attacks at our troops,'' Elamarti said. The U N force said on Wednesday it could not confirm if anybody had been killed during the raid.

Another person wounded in the same incident died that day in a hospital operated by the humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders, according to a hospital spokesman.

U N officials said they have been instructed to intervene in other slums considered hot spots of violence and crime, such as Martissant, south of the capital, where gunmen a week ago killed a freelance photojournalist, Jean Remy Badiau.

Badiau was gunned down because he took pictures of gang members who have been fighting for control of the slum, according to his wife.

The U N force has been in Haiti since shortly after former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide was ousted in an armed rebellion in February 2004.

Politically motivated violence appears to have eased since President Rene Preval, regarded by the country's poor as their champion, was elected almost a year ago. But poverty, joblessness and the drug trade continue to fuel widespread crime.

REUTERS PDS RN0347