Tension in Haiti mounts with shootout at demonstration in Port-au-Prince

The violence came after armed rebels who toppled Aristide in February challenged UN peacekeepers at the entrance to the city of flood-ravaged Gonaives, in a litmus test of a country where power appears to be up for grabs.

Thursday's violence ratcheted up tension in the country reeling from tropical storm Jeanne. Rescuers have recovered more than 1,550 bodies in northwest Haiti, most in the third-largest city of Gonaives, and some 900 are missing, according to government officials.

"It is highly probable that most of the missing are dead," UN spokesman Toussaint Kongo-Doudou said Thursday.

Several people were shot and wounded by the gunfire in Port-au-Prince, he reported. One radio station reported two police officers killed but there was no immediate confirmation of any deaths.

UN troops determined that a gunfight ensued between Aristide supporters and private security guards of shops looted during the march, Kongo-Doudou said.

Supporters of Aristide, now in exile in South Africa, were commemorating the 13th anniversary of his 1991 ouster by Haiti's army. They also used the occasion to demand an end to "the occupation" and "the invasion" by foreign troops, which began with U.S. marines replaced by UN peacekeepers in June.

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