PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Hundreds of U.N. peacekeepers raided Haiti's largest and most violent slum Friday, seizing a portion of it in a six-hour gunbattle that left a gang member dead and two soldiers wounded, officials said.
More than 700 heavily armed blue-helmeted troops from seven countries participated in the pre-dawn raid on Port-au-Prince's sprawling Cite Soleil slum, entering the mazelike shantytown in armored vehicles and on foot as U.N. helicopters circled above.
The peacekeepers seized several abandoned buildings in a section known as "Boston" that had been used by gangs to stage attacks. The raid sparked an intense firefight in the densely populated slum of 300,000.
Two U.N. soldiers — from Brazil and Bolivia — were slightly wounded, one by gunfire and the other in an unspecified incident unrelated to the fighting, U.N. spokesman Jean-Jacques Simon said.
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The spokesman said U.N. troops killed one suspected gang member and wounded four.
"There will be no tolerance for the kidnappings, harassment and terror carried out by criminal gangs," said Maj. Gen. Carlos Alberto Dos Santos Cruz, the Brazilian commander of the 9,000-strong international force. "I will continue to cleanse these areas of the gangs who are robbing the people of their security."
Friday's raid was one of the biggest in months by peacekeepers, who were sent to the troubled Caribbean country more than two years ago to quell violence in the chaos of a 2004 revolt that toppled former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
Dos Santos, speaking as gunfire still echoed through the streets, said gang members fired thousands of rounds at peacekeepers.
Associated Press journalists saw the blood-spattered body of a young man in a street. It was not clear who shot him, and his identity was unknown.
The area targeted in Friday's raid is controlled by a notorious street gang led by a shadowy figure known only as "Evens."
Meanwhile, an American missionary kidnapped outside the Haitian capital was released Friday, although there were conflicting reports about whether Nathan Jean-Dieudonne was harmed during the ordeal.
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