MIAMI, (Reuters) – Lawyers filed a federal class action lawsuit against the United Nations yesterday to seek compensation for almost 1,500 Haitian victims of a cholera epidemic blamed on U.N. peacekeepers.
The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in New York’s Eastern District also seeks to force the U.N. to bring sanitation and clean water to the Haitian communities in areas affected by the outbreak which started in October 2010.
An independent panel, appointed by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to study the epidemic that has killed more than 8,300 people and sickened more than 650,000, issued a report in 2011 that did not determine conclusively how the cholera was introduced to Haiti.
However, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the evidence strongly suggested U.N. peacekeepers from Nepal were the source after they set up a camp near a major river.
The lawsuit asks the court to declare that the U.N. does not enjoy legal immunity from liability for the cholera outbreak, despite its humanitarian role in assisting Haiti.
A U.N. spokesman declined to comment on the lawsuit.
The United Nations said last year that it would not pay hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation claimed by cholera victims, citing immunity under a 1946 convention.
