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September 27, 2013

Haitian Prime Minister: U.N. Has "Moral Responsibility" to Address Cholera Epidemic 
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During his speech before the U.N. General Assembly, Haitian Prime
Minister Laurent Lamothe called on the United Nations to take
responsibility for the cholera outbreak that has killed more than 8,000
Haitians and sickened more than 600,000. The disease strain has been
traced to U.N. peacekeepers from Nepal who deployed after Haiti's
devastating 2010 earthquake, but the United Nations has refused to pay
hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation sought by victims and
family members. Outside the United Nations, dozens of people gathered to
condemn the U.N. role.

Jimy Mertune, protester: "With the cholera in Haiti, where the issue was
already a poor country, it became worse because we didn't have the
infrastructure and it's crazy that the water that we consider as life
has become something that we fear to drink because we don't have clean
water. So the effect ... the implications are even more than what we put
in the media because certain things we cannot record."

It's definitely a crisis in this country where 6 percent of this nation
is being affected by this epidemic.

 

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