TRAGEDY IN HAITI

Haitian military police fired Wednesday on a 60-foot sailboat full of refugees trying to take to sea, setting off a panic in which at least 30 people were drowned. Witnesses offered TIME correspondent Edward J. Barnes the first verified report that Haitian authorities have fired on refugees attempting to flee. At about 1 a.m., Barnes was told, a Haitian police launch approached the ship at Nan L'Etat, off Haiti's southern coast, surprising a boatload of refugees drawn from about 400 waiting in surrounding coves and hillsides for passage to America. "At first, local villagers say, the boat people froze in fear," Barnes reports. "The refugees tried to stay quiet and hide, hoping the (police) boat would pass. Then three shots rang out in the darkness and there was chaos." Panicked boat people pushed others into the water, and the boat's boom broke free, knocking still more people into the sea. The four policemen who had come to stop the fleeing refugees saw the chaos and sped away, leav