Haiti Turmoil Grows Over Girl’s Death : Caribbean: Streets deserted as demonstrations spread in capital. Official denies Avril will resign.

Hundreds of people, some throwing rocks, blocked streets in the capital today on the fourth day of protests triggered by the army’s killing of a schoolgirl.

The normally bustling Port-au-Prince, a city of 1 million, was virtually deserted this morning, with schools and stores closed. Protesters blocked all main streets, and rocks were thrown at cars on the seafront.

On Thursday, thousands of people demonstrated in the capital and several provincial towns, setting fires and calling for the resignation of Haiti’s military leader, Lt. Gen. Prosper Avril.

Three people were killed in the protests Thursday, including a soldier beaten to death by a mob, independent radio reports said. Fifteen people were injured in clashes with soldiers, according to witnesses and a doctor at the state hospital in Port-au-Prince.

The government has made no comment on the unrest, but a high-ranking government official said today that Avril has no plans to resign.

“Avril is ready to make concessions, but a hasty departure is out of the question,” said the official, speaking on condition he not be further identified. He gave no indication what concessions were contemplated.

Avril indicated Wednesday he would resign if it was “the will of the people” but said that would cause “revolution and chaos.”

The protests were triggered by the killing of 11-year-old Rosaline Vaval Monday in the town of Petit Goave, where 10,000 mourners attended her burial Thursday. The girl was shot by a soldier breaking up an anti-government demonstration.

Radio Lumiere, a Protestant radio station, said today that a mob went on a rampage in Petit Goave, a town of 15,000, on Tuesday night, burning an army outpost, ransacking a government building and the mayor’s house.

In Gonaives, a western port city of 40,000, mobs plundered the house of Mayor Alexandre Louissaint, a Baptist pastor, and ransacked his church and a government building, according to a resident who spoke anonymously.

Earlier, about 3,000 people, shouting “Liberty!” and slogans against Avril, marched on the Presidential Palace in Port-au-Prince. Soldiers then fired in the air and beat demonstrators with billy clubs.

“The will of the people is for Avril to step down,” said a communique released Thursday night by a coalition of 11 opposition parties that earlier had called on Haitians to rise against the military government.