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 yesterday.
The epidemic, which has killed 1,110 people and made 18,382 ill, has piled misery on the Caribbean country as it struggles to recover from a massive January earthquake and prepares for crucial elections on November 28th.
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 yesterday, but debris still littered the roads.
Haiti’s cholera epidemic has triggered a regional health alert. Florida authorities yesterday reported one laboratory-confirmed case of cholera – a resident who had visited family in Haiti – but officials say good sanitary conditions meant the risk of a US outbreak was minimal.
Dominican Republic, Haiti’s eastern neighbour on Hispaniola island, increased health precautions after reporting one cholera case, a Haitian construction worker who had returned from a holiday in his homeland.
Port-au-Prince, with 1.5 million homeless earthquake survivors, has remained calm and relatively lightly affected by the cholera. Cap-Haitien and the Nord department have the highest cholera fatality rate in the country. – (Reuters)