Fierce gunbattles turned the Jamaican capital into a war zone yesterday as soldiers stormed the stronghold of an alleged drug baron wanted in the United States, but failed to find him.
At least sixty people, including three members of the security services, are believed to have been killed in battles between security forces and supporters of Christopher “Dudus” Coke, the reputed head of an international drug gang known as the Shower Posse. The Government wants to extradite him to the US, where he faces drug-trafficking and gun-running charges.
Bodies lay untouched in the streets as fighting raged in Mr Coke’s bastion in the Tivoli Gardens slum, Jamaica’s first public housing estate, and the nearby business district known as the Corporate Area. “You must realise, we are fighting a war,” Glenmore Hinds, the deputy police commissioner, said