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Haiti: UN reduces peacekeeping force – extends mission for 1 more year amid cholera controversy
(AFP) – The UN Security Council on Thursday voted to reduce the UN peacekeeping mission in Haiti which is battling a mounting controversy over a cholera epidemic. However, the Security Council also voted unanimously to extend the mission until mid-October 2014.
One day after a lawsuit against the United Nations was filed in court on behalf of victims, the Security Council urged the UN to support government efforts to battle the epidemic.
The cholera epidemic has killed more than 8,300 people since it started in October 2010 and made more than 679,000 sick. It has been traced to a river next to a UN camp where Nepalese troops were based.
A Security Council resolution which extended the mandate of the UN mission in Haiti, MINUSTAH, noted government efforts to “control and eliminate” the epidemic.
It urged “United Nations entities in coordination with other relevant actors to continue to support the government of Haiti in addressing the “structural weaknesses” in the Caribbean nation.
The Security Council reduced the maximum size of MINUSTAH to 5,021 troops, down from 6,233, and 2,601 police to 2,457. The reduction is part of a general campaign to cut UN forces where the security threat has fallen away.
The UN faces a prolonged battle over MINUSTAH which was originally sent to end political strife in 2004 and also played a key role after the January 2010 earthquake which killed more than 250,000 people.
Lawyers from the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti (IJDH) filed a lawsuit on Wednesday seeking compensation from the United Nations. The lawyers have previously sought US$100,000 for the family of each victim who died and US$50,000 for each survivor.
Medical studies have increasingly pointed to a UN link to the cholera.
But the United Nations said in February that the legal complaint was “non-receivable” under a 1946 convention setting out the UN’s immunities for its actions.
The UN has since refused to comment on the court case, which in a worst case scenario could cost billions.
“The UN remains committed to do all it can to help the people of Haiti overcome the cholera epidemic,” a UN spokesman, Farhan Haq, said Wednesday when asked about the damages claim.