Several hundred people attended a demonstration on Saturday, organized by the Comité de Relèvement de Duvivier (KRD), a neighborhood of Cite Soleil located near a dump, to demand the closure of the landfill and against the refusal of authorities to grant their request.

The cases of cholera are multiplied in recent weeks at Duvivier, residents fear the risks of pollution of groundwater, and accuse the private and public companies to dump human waste, that local residents believe contaminated by cholera.

Police Nationale d'Haiti (PNH) intervened to disperse the demonstrators. According Salvatory Saint Victor, a member of the Comité de Relèvement of Duvivier, during this brutal intervention of police, at least three people were arrested and Robert Ramon, a shopkeeper, was shot dead "by police" who fired to disperse the demonstrators.

Antonal Mortimer, the Secretary General of the Platform of Haitian Organizations for Human Rights Defense (POHDH), condemned the police who, accoring to him, has "no consideration for the right to life" and demands that sanctions be taken against the perpetrator of the shooting.

The PNH supports, that the police were pelted with stones and there were exchanges of gunfire between officers and protesters, without being able to confirm the origin of the shooting which made a victim. Robert Ramon's body was taken away and experts should make tests to determine the origin of the shots that killed the merchant. Pending the outcome of the investigation, the police officer involved in the incident was placed in confinement, according to police sources.

BF/ HaitiLibre