Port-Au-Prince (Haiti): A motorcade carrying Haiti's prime minister struck two teenage boys, killing one,as officials drove into the country's third largest city on Tuesday to see flood damage left by heavy rains.
Serge Daniel, a government delegate who was traveling in Prime Minister Jack Guy Lafontant's motorcade, said one of the vehicles accidentally struck two adolescents who darted into the road on a motorbike.
The motorcade continued on to its destination as the badly injured teenagers lay on the road, sparking a tire- burning protest by furious locals in the southwest city of Les Cayes.
Les Cayes police spokeswoman Guerline Dimanche said officers rushed the boys to a public hospital, where one was declared dead on arrival.
Mayor Jean Gabriel Fortune said Lafontant, a physician who was approved last month as Haiti's No. 2 official, agreed to put the survivor on a government helicopter for treatment in the capital of Port-au-Prince.
It was not clear if the motorcade was speeding or if the boys were driving recklessly.
Today's trip was meant to show government solidarity with victims of downpours that have saturated much of Haiti, triggering flooding in low-lying areas and causing at least two deaths in the struggling southwest region that was slammed by Hurricane Matthew last year.
Interior Ministry spokesman Guillaume Albert Moleon said that a 19-year-old man in Camp Perrin was swept away when he tried to cross a rising river with his motorbike. The other death was an elderly resident of Port Salut whose shack was destroyed by a torrent of water.
Comments
0 comment