Pro-Aristide Slum Set Afire
A fire roared through a slum that is a stronghold of support for exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, destroying about 200 dwellings Monday. A private radio station reported 10 people dead.
Stunned residents of the Cite Soleil slum said the blaze was set by members of the Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti, which supports the military that ousted Aristide in a 1991 coup. But the group denied responsibility.
The blaze began before dawn, just hours after a mob killed two of the front’s officials.
The dwellings destroyed in Cite Soleil, a slum filled with cardboard shacks, housed an estimated 1,500 people. After Aristide was overthrown, the military massacred scores of his supporters in the slum.
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