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Human rights lawyers representing victims of a cholera epidemic in Haiti have filed a lawsuit against the United Nations accusing it of having introduced the virus to the country in 2010.
According to Reuters, U.N. peacekeepers from Nepal are thought to have been responsible for introducing the virus to Haiti.
Miami attorney Ira Kurzban, who announced the lawsuit at a joint news conference with the human rights groups Bureau des Avocats Internationaux and the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, was quoted by Reuters as saying that "Before these events, Haiti did not know of cholera for 100 years. Cholera was brought to Haiti by U.N. troops."
The U.N. troops in Haiti were stationed near a tributary of the Artibonite River and are accused of discharging raw sewage carrying a strain of cholera.
Cholera can spread rapidly in areas with inadequate water treatment.
In an epidemic, the feces of an infected person are usually the cause of water and/or food contamination.
Cholera causes severe diarrhea, vomiting, leg cramps and rapid loss of body fluids which leads to dehydration and shock. Without treatment, death can occur within hours.
According to Reuters, "the cholera epidemic in Haiti has killed more than 8,300 people and sickened more than 650,000 since October 2010."
The lawyers who filed the suit are seeking $2.2 billion for the Haitian government to eradicate cholera along with unspecified damages for as many as 679,000 victims for personal injury, wrongful death, emotional distress, and loss of use of property and natural resources.
