Thousands march on Trinidad crime

Protesters in white symbolised the number of murder victims this year

At least 10,000 people have taken part in a march in Trinidad and Tobago to protest about a soaring crime rate and the government's failure to tackle it.

The so-called Death March through the streets of the Caribbean capital, Port of Spain, lasted for seven hours.

At one point, 305 people dressed in white lay down outside the parliament building to symbolise the number of people murdered so far this year.

The march was led by victims' families, among them businessmen and politicians.

They included opposition member of parliament Nizam Baksh, whose own 29-year-old son was kidnapped and murdered earlier this year.

Police figures for Trinidad show 165 people were reported kidnapped this year so far, Spanish news agency Efe says, with ransoms demanded for many.

Last month, Trinidad and Tobago's Prime Minister Patrick Manning said he had asked London's Metropolitan Police and the American FBI for teams to help deal with a surge in violent crime.

He said profits from drug trafficking were being used to buy weapons and ammunitions which were used by feuding gangs, pushing up death rates.

The prime minister has been criticised for failing to bring the problem under control.

Police say more people have been murdered in the first nine months of this year among the population of 1.3m than in the whole of 2004.