A UN police officer has been dragged from his car and shot dead as violence flared in Haiti’s capital following the dismissal of the country’s prime minister and the announcement of a plan to slash the price of rice.

ROADS were blocked and sustained gunfire rang out in upscale neighbourhoods in the mountains above Port-au-Price yesterday, as protests and looting over soaring food prices paralysed the Haitian capital.

Demonstrators angry over Haiti’s rising cost of living attacked a United Nations peacekeeping base and looted food shops in the south.