According to government figures, cholera has sickened more than 800,000 people, or about 7 percent of Haiti’s population, and has killed more than 9,200 since the outbreak began in October 2010.
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Details are sketchy on what kind of aid will be offered.
Health experts say cholera, which had not been documented in Haiti in nearly 100 years prior to the outbreak, will continue to kill and infect Haitians as long as they lack access to clean water and sanitation. These efforts must include, as a central focus, the victims of the disease and their families.
A US appeals court on Thursday upheld the world body’s immunity from a damage claim filed by rights lawyers on behalf of those killed or sickened by cholera.
Mario Joseph, managing attorney of the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux (BAI), which has been advocating for the victims since 2011, added, “This outcome places the onus back on the U.N.to follow through on its commitments to respond justly to victims out of court if it does not want to be an organization that stands for impunity”.
The admission comes after the Times obtained a confidential report authored by New York University professor of law Philip Alston, an adviser the UN.
“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”, his spokesman’s statement said.
Farhan Haq, a spokesperson for the office of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, admitted for the first time thatUN peacekeepers were involved in the initial spread of the disease in the country.
The epidemic broke out in 2010 in the vicinity of a base housing United Nations peacekeepers, in an impoverished Caribbean country that previously had been considered cholera-free. Since the outbreak in 2010, the United Nations has repeatedly denied its involvement, despite several reports that claimed otherwise. “This decision removes that pretext”.
In a press release Thursday, the institute said the U.N.’s acknowledgment of its role in the crisis was a “significant shift” for the organization, which has spent six years refusing to admit any culpability.
Cholera, which is transmitted through contaminated drinking water and causes acute diarrhea, is a major challenge in a country with poor sanitary conditions.
“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”, the United Nations secretary general’s deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq wrote in an email, according to the New York Times. But according to a report last November the ambitious 10-year plan had only received $307 million. The UN says it is considering several options.
Haq told reporters Friday that the secretary-general took note of the decision late Thursday by a USA federal appeals panel in NY upholding immunity for the United Nations and affirming a lower court’s 2015 judgment dismissing claims by cholera victims for reparations.
The UN is not saying that it caused the epidemic.
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Patients with cholera lie on mats at the crowded St. Nicholas Hospital in Saint Marc, in the Artibonite region of Haiti.
