Haitian city bloodbath

Police reinforcements fought bloody battles with gunmen as they tried to retake Haiti's fourth-largest city from rebels.

At least three police officers were killed in Gonaives and crowds mutilated the corpses.

One body was dragged through the street as a man swung at it with a machete. A woman cut off the officer's ear.

Another policeman was lynched and stripped to his shorts, and residents dropped a large rock on his corpse.

Rebels said they killed 14 police officers, Haitian radio stations reported, but the claim could not be confirmed.

The uprising appeared to be spreading as armed opponents of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide seized the police station in the west coast town of St Marc.

Militants have also attacked police stations and forced out police in at least five small towns near Gonaives, Haitian radio reports said.

The rebellion has not yet reached Port-au-Prince, the capital, where throngs of government supporters marched yesterday to mark the third anniversary of Aristide's second inauguration.

Anger has been brewing in Haiti since Aristide's party won flawed legislative elections in 2000.

The opposition refuses to join in any new vote unless Aristide resigns, which he refuses to do before his term ends in 2006.

At least 61 people have been killed in the Caribbean country since mid-September in clashes between police, government opponents and Aristide supporters.