PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) – United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon flew to Haiti yesterday for what he called a “necessary pilgrimage” to promote efforts to alleviate a cholera epidemic that has killed thousands and has been linked to the UN’s own peacekeepers.
Ban is seeking support for a $2.2 billion, 10-year cholera-elimination campaign that he launched in December 2012 with the presidents of Haiti and the neighbouring Dominican Republic.
Accompanied by his wife, Ban told a church service in the cholera-afflicted rural village of Los Palmas in Haiti’s central Plateau region that they had come to “express our solidarity” with the families of those who lost their lives.
“I know that the epidemic has caused much anger and fear. I know that the disease continues to affect an unacceptable number of people,” he said.
“My wife and I have come here to grieve with you. As a father and grandfather, and as a mother and grandmother, we feel tremendous anguish at the pain you have had to endure,” he added.
The United Nations has so far not accepted responsibility for the outbreak that has killed 8,500 people and infected more than 700,000 since October 2010, despite evidence that it was brought to Haiti by Nepalese peacekeepers stationed near a major river.
Cholera, which had not been documented in Haiti in almost 100 years prior to the outbreak, is an infection that causes severe diarrhea that can lead to dehydration and death, and is caused by poor sanitation.
Together with Haiti’s Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe, Ban later launched a “Total Sani-tation Campaign,” noting that one out of two Haitians lacks access to adequate sanitation systems.
