“The United Nations has a moral responsibility to the victims of the cholera epidemic and for supporting Haiti in overcoming the epidemic and building sound water, sanitation and health systems”, Ban said in a statement.
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Researchers said cholera was first detected in the central Artibonite Valley and cited evidence that it was introduced to Haiti’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.
The secretary-general noted the decision “upheld the immunity of the Organization from legal proceedings.in accordance with the UN Charter and other worldwide treaties”, Farhan Haq, the deputy spokesman, said while reading a prepared statement.
The decision was issued on late Thursday, wherein the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in NY affirmedJanuary 2015 dismissal by lower court of a lawsuit brought in the worst cholera outbreak in recent time.
“I don’t believe that this is something that we’re describing one way or another as reparations”, Mr Haq said, “our legal position on this issue has not changed since the last times that we’ve been discussing this [sic]”.
Since 2010, at least 10,000 people have died and many thousands more have fallen ill from the infection, which causes severe dehydration and muscle cramps as a result of vomiting and diarrhoea.
Brian Concannon, executive director of the Boston-based Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, said advocates for Haitian cholera victims will be watching the U.N.’s actions closely.
Lawyers for the cholera victims and their families argued that the disease had not been found in Haiti for 150 years.
Scientists traced the outbreak to a base housing United Nations peacekeepers sent from Nepal to assist with the recovery efforts.
Inadequately treated sewage water from a peacekeepers’ base reportedly contaminated Meille River, Haiti’s biggest water resource.
The decision Thursday by a three-judge panel of the USA 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a decision in January 2015 by the US District Court for the Southern District of NY, which dismissed the lawsuit on procedural grounds: It decided only whether the United Nations was immune. “But promises will not stop cholera’s killing or compensate for the damage to poor families in Haiti”.
Boys lie on cholera beds, cots with a hole cut into the center and a bucket underneath, in the intake tent at a cholera clinic set up by Medecins sans Frontieres in the Tabarre neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, November 19, 2010.
According to the UN, Some 72 percent of Haitians have no toilets at home and 42 percent still lack access to drinking water.
A recent report by Doctors Without Borders has raised the possibility the disease may have killed far more Haitians than previously estimated.
The U.N. has struggled to raise donor funds to eradicate cholera as part of a 10-year program.
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“He said it is high time that the United Nations proves to the world that “‘human rights for all’ means for Haitians, too”. The U.N. has successfully fended off a class action suit in a US federal court on behalf of Haitian victims seeking financial redress.
