Seven gang members killed in joint UN-Haiti police operation

A joint weekend operation between the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Haiti and the national police in a northern district of the country's capital, Port-au-Prince, resulted in the deaths of two long-sought gang leaders and five followers of one of them, the UN operation said in a statement released today.

On Sunday the operation caught René Jean Anthony, also known as "Grenn Sonnen," and five of his followers in the low-income district called Delmas. They were killed in an exchange of fire with the Haitian National Police (HNP) and civilian police (CivPol) from the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH).

"René Jean Anthony put up the most violent resistance that the technical advisers to CivPol have witnessed since the beginning of their operations in Haiti," CivPol spokesman Daniel Moskaluk said.

A self-appointed leader of the demobilized military, Ravix Remissainthe, sought by the HNP for several weeks, was cornered Saturday in Delmas and died in crossfire, MINUSTAH said.

The search of a house suspected of sheltering Mr. Remissainthe and other armed suspects turned up HNP uniforms, thereby explaining how the recent crimes by armed gangs of hijacking vehicles, murders and abductions came to be blamed on the local police, Mr. Moskaluk said.