PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) A US federal appeals court has upheld the United Nations’ immunity from a damage claim filed on behalf of 5,000 cholera victims who blame the U.N. for an epidemic of the deadly disease in Haiti.
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Thursday’s developments came 10 days after completion of a confidential report that is said to have sharply criticized United Nations involvement in the crisis.
“Up until now, the United Nations had refused to engage in any kind of conversation about their role in the cholera outbreak”.
The United Nations (UN) has admitted playing a part in starting a cholera epidemic that killed thousands in Haiti after an quake rocked the Caribbean nation in 2010.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s deputy spokesman Farhan Haq promised a “significant new set of UN actions” to respond to the crisis, following a confidential report sent to the UN chief that was critical of the world body’s actions.
They say U.N. peacekeepers were responsible for introducing a cholera epidemic in Haiti in October 2010, following the massive quake that hit the impoverished Caribbean nation. On Thursday, Haq reiterated that the UN’s legal position in claiming diplomatic immunity “has not changed.”
The quake alone killed 220,000 people, but it was 10 months later that the muddy and overcrowded camps became a breading site for the disease.
Friday’s statement was the first time the United Nations has pledged direct financial aid to victims of the epidemic, which first broke out near a UN peacekeepers’ base a few months after Haiti was struck by a 7.0 magnitude quake in January 2010.
The decision was issued on late Thursday, wherein the USA 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.
For years, the New York-headquartered body had denied or been silent on longstanding allegations that it was responsible for the outbreak, while answering lawsuits in U.S. courts by claiming immunity under a 1946 convention.
It is the first time a United Nations spokesperson has acknowledged the agency’s role in causing the first cholera outbreak the country has seen in nearly a century. However, the United Nations has so far held that the origin is debatable.
The announcement comes after a U.S. appeals court on Thursday turned down an appeal by Haitian victims of the epidemic. Waste from the base leaked into the river, encouraging the spread of the disease.
“This is a groundbreaking first step towards justice”, Beatrice Lindstrom, a lawyer at IJDH, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in a telephone interview.
Since its introduction to Haiti in October 2010, cholera has killed more than 9,300 Haitians and sickened over 800,000.
Mario Joseph, a human-rights lawyer in Haiti representing cholera victims, said the report’s conclusions are “a major victory for the thousands of Haitians who have been marching for justice, writing to the United Nations, and bringing the U.N.to court”.
With its temperate climate and infrastructure-including waste treatment facilities-decimated by the natural disaster, Haiti provided ideal conditions for the bacteria to thrive, and the disease spread quickly.
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According to the UN, Some 72 percent of Haitians have no toilets at home and 42 percent still lack access to drinking water.
