UN peacekeepers in Haiti face bullets and stones

One civilian police officer from the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) has been injured by stone-throwers as he tried to rescue an alleged thief from a lynch mob and two other officers escaped to safety a day later after their vehicle came under fire.

The injured officer was on a road leading to Pétionville, an upper-income suburb of the capital, Port-au-Prince, when an angry crowd showered his motor patrol with stones on Tuesday as the officers aided someone suspected of stealing.

The next day two officers on patrol and driving around downtown Port-au-Prince were fired upon by about a dozen armed people. Bullets hit the motor and the tyres and the vehicle was forced to stop. Other local and UN officers rescued them and an investigation was launched, MINUSTAH said.