Haiti president in plea for calm as rioting hits aid agencies

Haiti's president has appealed for calm amid fears that riots aimed at United Nations peacekeepers over the country's cholera epidemic could spread to the capital.

With deaths from the disease now above 1,000, president Ren Prval said the violence and looting sweeping the north of Haiti was keeping people from receiving care.

The UN cancelled flights carrying three tonnes of soap along with other medical supplies to the north because of the trouble, the UN Office for the Co- ordination of Humanitarian Affairs said.

A UN World Food Programme warehouse was looted and burned. Oxfam has suspended water chlorination projects and the World Health Organisation has halted training of medical staff

The capital, Port-au-Prince, remains calm, but there are fears that protests could erupt in the city, which remains devastated by last January's earthquake.

The Haitian government sent senior officials to the north in hopes of quelling the unrest. The police chief, the health minister and other cabinet officials headed to Cap-Haitien, the country's second largest city, where protesters erected barricades of burning tyres and other debris.

At least two demonstrators have died, one of them shot by a member of the multinational peacekeeping force that has been trying to keep order since 2004.

During a second day of rioting, a police station was set alight and rocks thrown at UN bases.