Security Council slams killing of Nigerian peacekeeper in Haiti
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| Published on Tuesday, April 15, 2008 |
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PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AFP): The UN Security Council on Monday strongly condemned the killing of a Nigerian police officer of the UN mission in Haiti and urged Haitian authorities to take all necessary steps to bring those responsible to justice.
In a statement read by South Africa's UN ambassador Dumisani Kumalo, the council chair this month, the 15-member body "condemned in the strongest terms the murder" of the 36-year-old Nigerian peacekeeper.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon also expressed shock at the killing and reiterated "his appeal for calm and urges all demonstrators to refrain from any further acts of violence," according his press office.
Security Council members also urged "the government of Haiti to take all necessary measures to identify and bring to justice the perpetrators of this attack" and expressed strong support for the probe jointly launched by Haitian police and the 10,000-strong UN mission (MINUSTAH) in the impoverished Caribbean nation.
The out-of-uniform Nigerian police officer was shot dead near Port-au-Prince's cathedral on Saturday, as UN peacekeepers elsewhere in the city reportedly fired tear gas at protesters the same day Prime Minister Jacques-Edouard Alexis was ousted.
Thousands of people took to the streets around Haiti last week after the latest jump in food and fuel prices, in sometimes violent demonstrations that forced UN troops to intervene. | | | | Reads : 48 |
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