PORT-AU-PRINCE, (Reuters) – Several hundred protesters clashed with riot police in Haiti’s capital yesterday to demand that outgoing President Rene Preval leave office immediately as the country moved toward a deciding presidential run-off vote.
The police, backed by United Nations peacekeepers who were standing by, fired shots in the air and tear gas canisters to keep the chanting, stone-throwing demonstrators back from the presidential palace in central Champs de Mars square in Port-au-Prince. “Preval must go,” the demonstrators yelled.
Tear gas canisters fell into a crowded tent camp in the square housing thousands of survivors from Haiti’s devastating 2010