PORT-AU-PRINCE: Anti-UN riots in the Haitian city of Cap-Haitien have disrupted international efforts to tackle a spreading cholera epidemic, increasing the risk of infection and death for tens of thousands of poor Haitians in the north, aid workers said on Wednesday.
The epidemic, which has killed 1,110 people and sickened 18,382 as of Monday, has piled misery on the Caribbean country as it struggles to recover from a massive January earthquake and prepares for crucial elections on Nov. 28.
The unrest on Monday and Tuesday in Haiti’s northern city, which saw protesters, some of them armed with guns, attacking UN peacekeepers and blocking roads with burning barricades, prevented cholera patients from reaching hospitals and halted distribution of aid and medicines. Cap-Haitien was calmer on Wednesday, but debris still littered the roads.
Local media reported bodies of cholera victims being left in the streets of the city of close to 1 million, where aid agencies are battling to contain the fiercest spike of the month-old Haitian cholera epidemic. The protesters blamed UN Nepalese peacekeepers for bringing the cholera to Haiti, a charge denied by the UN mission in the country.
“We have to get aid to these people right away and this unrest is delaying that,” Julie Schindall, spokeswoman for the international charity Oxfam, told Reuters. She said vital time was being lost to combat a fast-acting diarrheal disease where hours can mean the difference between life and death.
“Every day we lose means hospitals go without supplies, patients go untreated and people remain ignorant of the danger they are facing,” the UN humanitarian coordinator in Haiti, Nigel Fisher, said in a statement.
Cholera is spread by contaminated water and food, but if caught early can be easily treated by oral rehydration fluids. If not treated, it can kill in hours.
The riots, which killed at least two people and injured dozens, including Nepalese peacekeepers pelted with rocks in the central city of Hinche, have raised tensions ahead of the elections in the Western Hemisphere’ poorest state.
But the Haitian government has not moved to postpone the polls and the United Nations, which has a 12,000-strong peacekeeping force in Haiti, says logistical, technical and security conditions are in place for the polls to go ahead.
President Rene Preval appealed for calm, saying unrest would only hinder efforts to help cholera victims. “Neither burning tires, nor throwing stones or bottles, nor shooting can kill the cholera germ,” he said in speech late on Tuesday.
UN officials blame the Haitian riots on criminals and political agitators they say are seeking to disrupt the elections, which will choose a successor to Preval, a 99-member parliament and 11 members of the 30-seat Senate.
Haiti’s cholera epidemic has triggered a regional health alert. Florida authorities on Wednesday reported one laboratory-confirmed case of cholera — a resident who had visited family in Haiti — but officials say good sanitary conditions mean the risk of a US outbreak is minimal.
Dominican Republic, Haiti’s eastern neighbor on Hispaniola island, increased health precautions after reporting one cholera case, a Haitian construction worker who had returned from a holiday in his homeland.
Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince, crowded with 1.5 million homeless earthquake survivors, has remained calm and relatively lightly affected by the cholera. But Cap-Haitien and the Nord department have the highest cholera fatality rate in Haiti.
The outbreak’s epicenter is located in the central Artibonite region,
Imogen Wall of UN humanitarian agency OCHA said the unrest forced the UN to cancel flights carrying soap, medical supplies and personnel to Cap-Haitien and Port-de-Paix, while other aid agencies and non-governmental organizations temporarily halted cholera-linked water treatment and training.
During the riots, a World Food Program warehouse in Cap-Haitien was looted of 500 tons of food and burned.
There were signs one of the biggest humanitarian operations in the world was struggling to control the epidemic in Haiti, a country that lost more than 250,000 people in the January earthquake.
“An easily treatable and preventable disease continues to claim lives,” said medical charity Doctors Without Borders, warning of “acute deficiencies” in Haiti’s anti-cholera fight.
“Critical preventative activities such as distribution of clean drinking water, positioning of oral rehydration points in affected communities, waste removal, and safe burial of victims of the epidemic, all remain far below the needs,” the group said.
