Published today by Inter-Press Service. (A much shorter version of this story aired earlier in the day during the headlines section of today’s FSRN newscast.) See updates below.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, May 25, 2010 (IPS) – United Nations peacekeeping troops responded to a rock-throwing demonstration by university students Monday evening with a barrage of tear gas and rubber bullets in the area around Haiti’s National Palace, sending masses of displaced Haitians running out of tent camps into the streets, according to witnesses.
“That child was gravely injured in the face! It was miserable, they were throwing gas everywhere,” said Junior Joel, a young man hanging with friends at night outside the palace – still partially collapsed from the January earthquake.
Three volunteer doctors from the NGO Partners in Health who were working in the emergency room of the General Hospital said they treated at least six individuals with wounds from rubber bullets.
“They were bleeding,” Sarah McMillan, a doctor from New Hampshire, told IPS. “There was a little girl with a big laceration on her face. It needed about 10 stitches. She’ll probably have a scar.” Read more →










A quick update: I left Haiti last week for Seattle. I’m in Washington DC now speaking to a few policymakers/staff about the dysfunction of the relief effort. I’ll be in NYC later this week, then Austin, then back to Port-Au-Prince in May. 
