Cholera killed more than a thousand deaths in Haiti, the situation remains tense

Written by Sandeep Nehra

The situation remained tense in Haiti on Tuesday, a day after clashes between peacekeepers and demonstrators angry against the management by the authorities of the cholera epidemic that killed over a thousand deaths, with barricades on fire and sporadic gunfire in some places .

Haitian President Rene Preval has appealed for calm, saying in a recorded message that “create chaos and instability has never provided a solution in a country through difficult times”

Barricades of burning tires were set up in Cap-Haitien (North) and Hinche (center), and sporadic shooting occurred there, told AFP a police official in the capital Port-au- Prince of anonymity.

Clashes broke out Monday in two towns, leaving two dead and fourteen injured in Cap-Haitien and six wounded UN soldiers in Hinche. The UN acknowledged Monday it had fired in self defense on one of the men who died.

“We’re trying to monitor the situation in other cities where there have been attempts to events this morning,” added the police official, indicating that the Interior Minister Paul Antoine Bien- Beloved and the Director General of Police Mario Andresol would go to the north in an attempt to restore calm.

In Cap-Haitien, the second largest city located some 300 km north of Port-au-Prince, protesters set fire Monday at a police station. Schools remained closed, some parents refusing to send their children lest they be contaminated by cholera.

The same day Hinche Nepalese peacekeepers, accused by some of the people of spreading the epidemic of cholera had been pelted stone at a gathering of some 400 people.

A rumor says that the epidemic was caused by septic systems in the UN base near Mirebalais (center), where many Nepalese soldiers are stationed.

“False rumors” may have been the cause of the attacks of a portion of the population against the Nepalese soldiers, told AFP Tuesday Ramindra Chhettri, spokesman of the Nepal Army. But the health tests done to our soldiers show that they have nothing to do with the epidemic, “she said.

The Nepal Army has strengthened the protection of its thousands of peacekeepers in the country working with the UN Mission for Stabilization in Haiti (MINUSTAH).

In a statement released Monday evening, the latter denounced “violence against the Haitian police and UN.” “The way events unfolded suggests that these incidents were politically motivated, aimed at creating a climate of insecurity on the eve of elections,” said MINUSTAH. Presidential and legislative elections are scheduled for November 28.

In late October, a cholera treatment center Doctors Without Borders at St. Mark (center) was attacked by protesters who feared a spread of the epidemic. No serious injuries had been said.

The Haitian Ministry of Health said Tuesday that the epidemic of cholera had so far killed 1,034, or 117 more than the latest figures provided Sunday. The Haitian Ministry has also counted 16,799 hospitalizations since the beginning of the epidemic, more than 2,157 at the last balance sheet. He also reported 38 deaths in Port-au-Prince, against 27 previously.

Poor hygiene conditions in camps for refugees of the earthquake of January 12 indicate potential rapid spread of cholera, a highly contagious disease in the poorest country in the Americas.

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