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United Nations facing lawsuit for causing Haiti cholera epidemic
(Reuters) – Human rights lawyers representing Haitian victims of a cholera epidemic announced on Wednesday they were filing a lawsuit against the United Nations, with a New York court seeking compensation from the world body.
The decision to file suit comes after the United Nations said earlier this year that it would not pay hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation claimed by cholera victims in impoverished Haiti, where the epidemic has killed over 8,300 people and sickened more than 650,000 since October 2010.
“The plaintiffs include Haitians and Haitian Americans who contracted cholera themselves as well as family members of those who died of the disease,” the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti said in a statement.
The statement said lawyers were filing the suit in the U.S. District Court in New York’s Southern District. There were no details about the amount of compensation victims were seeking.
An independent panel appointed by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to study the epidemic issued a 2011 report that did not determine conclusively how the cholera was introduced to Haiti.
But the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that evidence strongly suggested U.N. peacekeepers from Nepal were the source.
Cholera is an infection causing severe diarrhea that can lead to dehydration and death. It occurs in places with poor sanitation.
