In an email to the New York Times, Farhan Haq, deputy spokesman for the United Nations secretary general, said that “over the past year, the United Nations has become convinced that it needs to do much more regarding its own involvement in the initial outbreak and the suffering of those affected by cholera”.
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Haq said in the statement that the United Nations has been considering a series of options, and “a significantly new set of U.N. actions” will be presented publicly within the next two months.
Researchers say cholera was first detected in Haiti’s central Artibonite Valley and cite evidence that it was introduced to the country’s biggest river from a United Nations base where Nepalese troops were deployed as part of a peacekeeping operation which has been in the country since 2004.
A US federal appeals court has upheld the United Nations’ immunity from a damage claim filed by human rights lawyers on behalf of thousands of Haitians killed or sickened by a cholera epidemic they blame on U.N. peacekeepers.
On Friday, findings released by the organization’s Office of Internal Oversight Services showed that United Nations staffers were still not using strict waste disposal protocols at their missions in Haiti, Africa, and the Middle East as late as 2014 and 2015-years after the epidemic had killed almost 10,000 people and sickened at least 770,000.
In the study, researchers developed a mathematical model for the arrival of peacekeepers carrying cholera and the early spread of the disease in Haiti.
In a decision late on Thursday, the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals in NY upheld a lower court’s January 2015 dismissal of a lawsuit brought by lawyers seeking compensation and a public apology for 5,000 Haitian cholera victims.
The U.N. has been advocating rapid response mobile health teams to tackle cholera in Haiti. They likely unwittingly carried the disease into Haiti and contaminated water supplies there with human waste. It has answered lawsuits on behalf of victims filed in USA courts by claiming immunity under a 1946 convention.
Haq reiterated Thursday that the U.N.’s legal position in claiming diplomatic immunity “has not changed”.
The United Nations has acknowledged its role in the deadly cholera outbreak in Haiti, which killed thousands of people. As of March, it was killing an average of 37 people a month. “It’s been here for years and it seems like it is here to stay”, said laborer Jhony Nordlius as he pushed a wheelbarrow past a fetid canal where children were splashing and collecting garbage. Sewage is rarely treated and safe water remains inaccessible to many. “I hope so because it has harmed many people”, said Vale, as he washed his socks in a roadside pool of stagnant water.
The epidemic broke out near a base housing hundreds of Nepali peacekeepers. “There still needs to be compensation for the families and an elimination of cholera”, she said. According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there are 3 million to 5 million cases of the illness every year worldwide and 100,000 deaths.
“We will decide how to proceed based on whether the U.N.’s actions fulfill the cholera victims’ rights to an effective remedy”, Concannon said in a statement.
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He called a draft report and its recommendations from a human rights rapporteur recently received “a valuable contribution to the United Nations as we work towards a significantly new set of United Nations actions”.
