PORT-AU-PRINCE, (Reuters) – Anti-U.N. riots in the Haitian city of Cap-Haitien have disrupted international efforts to tackle a spreading cholera epidemic, increasing the risk of infection and death for tens of thousands of poor Haitians in the north, aid workers said yesterday. The situation in Haiti’s main northern city remained tense yesterday following two days of unrest, in which protesters angry over the unchecked epidemic attacked U.N. peacekeepers and set up burning barricades of tires, U.N. officials said.
aMost of Cap-Haitien’s main avenues were still blocked and the airport was closed. The U.N. mission in Haiti said it received a local police report of about 200 protesters stoning a hospital outside Cap-Haitien and “foreign doctors” at the site. No additional details were immediately available.
The cholera epidemic, which has killed 1,110 people and sickened 18,382 as of Monday, has piled misery on the Caribbean country as it struggles to recover from a massive January earthquake and prepares for crucial elections on Nov. 28.
The violence in Cap-Haitien, in which some armed protesters fired on U.N. troops and two demonstrators were killed, prevented cholera patients from reaching hospitals and halted distribution of medicines. Dozens of people were injured. Protesters blamed U.N. Nepalese peacekeepers for bringing the cholera to Haiti, a charge denied by the U.N. mission.
Local media reported bod
ies of cholera victims — a major infection threat — being left in the streets of the city of close to 1 million, where aid agencies are battling to contain the fiercest spike of the month-old Haitian cholera epidemic.
