Dignitaries rush to cover as protests flare at Haiti president's funeral

A U.S. delegation and other dignitaries were hurried to vehicles as reports emerged of shots fired and crowd control gas used on protesters outside the funeral of late Haitian president Jovenel Moise on Friday.

A U.S. delegation and other dignitaries were hurried to vehicles as reports emerged of shots fired and crowd control gas used on protesters outside the funeral of late Haitian president Jovenel Moise on Friday. Reuters witnesses smelled the gas and heard detonations they believed to be shots. There were no immediate reports of injuries among protesters or authorities, and no indications any guests at the funeral were in danger.

A brass band and church choir opened Moise's ceremony minutes earlier as his wife looked on, two weeks after a still-unexplained assassination at their home by foreign mercenaries. Four pallbearers in military attire stood guard around the closed wooden casket, draped with a Haitian flag, on a dais garlanded with white flowers. Onlookers dressed in formal black attire rose to sing a psalm at the Roman Catholic ceremony.

U.S. President Joe Biden's ambassador to the United Nations led the U.S. delegation at Cap-Haitien to pay respects to Moise, joining mourners who have taken part in a series of commemorations in Haiti this week.