There is no indication of mass migration or a humanitarian disaster in crisis-stricken Haiti, US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said at a Defense Department briefing on Tuesday.

"There is no indication of mass migration," Rumsfeld said, "Quite the contrary, it is down to zero for the last three days, asI recall, of anyone trying to leave the country."

"There is no indication of humanitarian disaster. There is ample food in the country from everything we are told. There may be some distribution problems, but neither of those are currently an issue," Rumsfeld said.

President George W. Bush has declared that the US would turn away any Haitian refugees trying to reach American shores, and theUS has repatriated 531 Haitian boat people intercepted by the US Coast Guard.

Over 130 people have been killed in Haiti since an armed revoltagainst the ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide broke out early February and there have been rampant looting in the poor Caribbean country.

Aristide was forced to resign on February 29 and went into exile in the Central African Republic. Aristide has accused the USof abducting him and forcing him to step down, but the US has dismissed the claim as "sheer nonsense.