Cholera epidemic: Haiti protesters attack medics

The United Nations says protestors in Haiti have attacked foreign medics at a hospital in Haiti’s second city Cap-Haitien. The incident, which it describes as an “alarming” development, follows two days of violent demonstrations targeting UN peacekeepers, who are accused of spreading cholera.

“We have got protestors gathering outside the hospital and throwing rocks at the building and at the foreign doctors, which is obviously very alarming,” a UN spokesperson told Channel 4 News by telephone from Port-au-Prince.

“These reports are just coming in from teams up there and I have no further information at the moment,” said Imogen Wall, spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. She was speaking at noon local time.

Attacks and looting

The attacks on Nepalese peacekeepers, which led to the deaths of at least two demonstrators – one of whom was shot dead on Tuesday by a UN “blue-helmet” – has already seriously disrupted medical relief efforts in the middle of a cholera epidemic which is sweeping the island.

The Haitian President, Rene Preval, has sought to restore order in Cap-Haitien – 186 miles north of the capital, Port-au-Prince – where rioters torched a police station on Tuesday before looting and setting ablaze a World Food Programme warehouse. The looters stole 500 tonnes of food.

President Preval warned that violence, disorder and attempts to destabilise the country would not be tolerated. Haiti is two weeks away from a presidential election.

“The food you are pillaging so that you can do your own business belongs to school children, sick people in hospitals, the poor,” he said, in a written statement.

“While cholera is attacking us, it’s not the moment for us to be fighting. Cholera is already killing people.”

Cholera epidemic

The UN was forced to cancel flights bringing in vital supplies to tackle the cholera epidemic. Cap-Haitien, in the northern administrative region, has the highest cholera fatality rate in the country, at 7.5 per cent.

“With the security situation and violent demonstrations in Cap-Haitien, it’s very difficult to run the cholera operations that we need up there,” Imogen Wall told Channel 4 News.

“The cholera situation there is extremely serious. It’s a crucial time for us to be responding – and we’re unable to do that at the moment.”

While cholera is attacking us, it’s not the moment for us to be fighting. Cholera is already killing people. President Preval

The UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Haiti, Nigel Fisher, had earlier released a statement calling on all involved in what he called “these clearly orchestrated demonstrations” to stop immediately as they were seriously impeding efforts to respond to “the rapidly escalating cholera outbreak.”

A spokesman for the 12,000-strong UN peacekeeping mission has denied that its troops were responsible for the epidemic, calling on Haitians not to allow themselves to be manipulated by “the enemies of stability and democracy.”

The Haitian cholera strain apparently derives from South Asia, although there has been no independent epidemiological investigation into the outbreak’s origins.

Disease spreads

Frustration is reported to be boiling over and tempers fraying as a fresh disaster looms, 10 months after the earthquake which levelled the capital and killed 300,000 people. UN peacekeepers, known in Haiti as Minustah, arrived to help stem political violence six years ago. They are the most visible UN presence in the country and have become a lightening rod for Haitians’ ire.

On Tuesday, the Haitian government released its latest figures on the spread of the disease, indicating that the number of cases was continuing to grow and that the numbers killed had doubled in a week, to 1,034. Health experts warned that the figures were behind the curve and probably understated the situation.

The charity Medecins Sans Frontieres reported that particular spikes in the number of new cases were being seen in the capital, Port-au-Prince, and in the northern cities of Cap Haitien, Port de Paix and Gros Morne.

Since 22 October, it said, MSF teams had treated 16,500 people for suspected cholera in a total of 21 treatment centres. The first case of cholera has now also been confirmed in the neighbouring Dominican Republic.

Shocking pictures emerge

Shocking pictures have emerged from the Haitian capital of naked people lying on the roadside, unattended. In one, a woman lies helpless on a pavement, apparently ignored by passers-by.

In another photograph, an unconscious man lies naked just outside the presidential palace, which now accommodates an emergency operations centre to deal with the cholera outbreak.

“Until now people suffering from cholera in Port-au-Prince were taken to hospital,” says Sarah Corp, the Channel 4 News Foreign Affairs producer, who returned from Haiti last week.

“To see someone just lying on a public street right next to the presidential palace – presumably because of the fear of contagion – is very shocking, particularly because they’re only a few minutes’ walk from a hospital.”