FNs menneskerets-repræsentant på Haiti vender sig mod FNs officielle holdning om nul-kompensation til kolera-ofre på den caribiske ø, hvor over 600.000 menes inficeret af den smitsomme sygdom siden 2010 efter læk i en kloak fra en FN-base.
Gustavo Gallon, the UN’s top human rights officer in Haiti, has come out as the first senior United Nations official to break ranks with his organisation by calling for “full compensation” for the victims of the cholera epidemic, reports BBC online Saturday.
Gustavo Gallon also said in his report that “those responsible” for the outbreak should be punished. It is the first such call by a representative of the UN, which has so far rejected compensation claims. And the report has once again exposed what is an unprecedented legal and moral crisis for the UN.
Evidence suggests UN peacekeepers introduced cholera to Haiti in 2010. The outbreak has killed more than 8.300 people and it appears to have spread after a sewage (kloak) from a UN base in central Haiti leaked into a nearby river.
The UN has never acknowledged responsibility for the epidemic, arguing that it is impossible to pinpoint the exact source of the disease. The organisation further says it has legal immunity, BBC notes.
Mr Gallon said the UN “should be the first to honour” the principle of compensation for victims of human rights violations. He added that “silence is the worst of responses” to a “catastrophe caused by human action”.
In an ongoing lawsuit in the US, lawyers for the victims are demanding compensation of 100.000 US dollar (550.000 DKR) for every person who died and 50.000 dollar for each of those who became ill.
No cases of the bacterial infection, which causes diarrhoea, nausea (kvalme), vomiting (opkast) and muscle cramps, had been recorded in Haiti for a century until the outbreak in late 2010.
Cholera is spread through infected faeces (afføring). Once it enters the water supply it is difficult to stop – especially in a country like Haiti which has almost no effective sewage disposal systems.
