What do Haiti, the UN, and Diarrhea all have in common?

The answer: Cholera.

Many Americans will never know the first-hand effects of the diarrheal disease, however just over 7,500 Haitians died due to the preventable illness since October, 2010.

After the major earthquake that hit Haiti in 2010, many organizations rushed to the country’s side to aid it in its time of need. The Haitian government granted immunity to the members of certain groups in order to help them better control citizens and rebuild Haiti’s damaged cities, to be more specific: the estimated 8,000 members of the UN’s Stabilization Mission. On the outside, the occupation of Haiti appears to be an necessary and beneficial action of the UN. Why, then, was a lawsuit against the UN filed on behalf of over 5,000 Haitians?

Whilst countries such as Nepal and other Asian countries were experiencing a cholera outbreak in early 2010, the country of Haiti hadn’t seen the disease since the early 1960′s. The country’s water system, whilst outdated in comparison to the US’s, was clean and free of the bacteria that causes so many unnecessary deaths. A likely cause for the Haitian Cholera Epidemic of 2010 that has infected over 600,000 people: the UN’s improper disposal of sewage.

Shortly after the outbreak began to ravage the already unstable country it was discovered that a squadron of the UN’s “peacekeepers” had a sewage leak on the bank of the Artibonite River, Haiti’s main source of water for everything from agriculture to drinking. A majority of the peacekeepers at this base were from Nepal, a country that had suffered its own Cholera outbreak just months before. After careful testing of the Cholera bacteria in Haiti it was determined that the particular virus, now weeding its way through Haiti, was native to South-East Asia.

The lawsuit currently filed against the UN seeks three ends:

1. The instillation of a national water and sanitation system that will control the epidemic
2. Compensation for individual victims of cholera for their losses
3. A public apoloigy from the United Nations for its wrongful acts

Just two years after the outbreak began, the lawsuit and tragedy are overlooked by many citizens of well-off nations. The UN refuses to take responsibility for the outbreak of the preventable disease, claiming that the introduction of the disease-causing-bacteria into the Artibonite River was due to the uncovering of the virus in Earth’s shift during the 2010 earthquake. Still though, the managing attorney on the case, Mario Joseph, fights for the justice that the 5,000 Haitian victims seek and deserve.

There is much more that the citizens in the US could do to improve the lives of the Haitian victims, however ‘much’ is not asked of us. All that is asked is a signature. A petition to the UN has been opened to the public, by clicking on the link below you can let the UN know that what they have done will not be overlooked, they can deny their wrong doings no more.

Click here to sign the petition and tell the UN to put a stop to the unnecessary deaths in Haiti

View the film: Baseball in the Time of Cholera