Violence erupts at Haiti funeral

Haitians queued to identify their relatives on Wednseday

Violence has erupted in Haiti at the funeral of 24 illegal migrants found dead in the Dominican Republic.

Police and UN peacekeepers clashed with protesters as they tried to cross the border, leaving at least one dead.

The bodies of the 24 Haitians had to be taken back into the Dominican Republic, and were buried in a common grave.

Protesters were demanding an inquiry into the deaths of the migrants, who the Dominicans say suffocated in the back of a smuggler's lorry.

Some survivors said, however, that the truck had been fired at from a vehicle.

The Dominican police have arrested at least 20 people over the incident. Some reports say there are military officers among those detained.

Tensions

On Thursday, the Dominican authorities said they had tried to hand the bodies over to UN forces in Haiti, but the vehicle carrying the coffins was shot at from the Haitian side of the border.

The protests came as the number of Haitian migrants dead rose to 25, after a survivor died in hospital.

The lorry they were on was believed to have been transporting some 60 illegal immigrants from the Haitian border to the Dominican town of Santiago.

Relations between the two countries are strained over the hundreds of thousands of Haitians working illegally in the Dominican Republic, which shares the Caribbean island of Hispaniola with Haiti.