Hatians riot in cities across country

The cholera epidemic in Haiti is rapidly becoming a national security issue, with riots spreading to several cities and towns.Protesters blaming a contingent of Nepalese peacekeepers for a deadly outbreak of cholera barricaded roads and exchanged gunfire with U.N. soldiers in clashes that lasted late into the night and saw a UN peacekeeper shoot and kill a demonstrator.

The 12,000-member force reported that at least six U.N. personnel were wounded in protests at Hinche in the central plateau, while local Radio Metropole reported that at least 12 Haitians were injured in Cap-Haitien.

The protests apparently began in Cap-Haitien early Monday and within hours had paralyzed much of the northern port city.

UN officials on the ground are saying the outbreak is now a matter of national security.

“It's an issue, obviously, of national security where we have demonstrations starting already against, for example, cholera treatment centres.”

Deputy envoy of the United Nations Secretary-General in the Caribbean country, Nigel Fisher, who says the United Nations mission there is modifying its communication strategy.

“So the communication strategy is broadening not just from information about how people can protect themselves through better hygiene but also such examples as to have a cholera treatment centre in your locality is actually an advantage. It is not a threat to your health.”


Cholera had never before been documented in Haiti before it broke out about three weeks ago.

Suspicions quickly surrounded a Nepalese base located on the Artibonite River system, where the outbreak started. The soldiers arrived there in October following outbreaks in their home country and about a week before Haiti's epidemic was discovered.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that the cholera strain now ravaging the country matched a strain specific to South Asia, but said they had not pinpointed its origin or how it arrived in Haiti.

Following an Associated Press investigation, the U.N. acknowledged that there were sanitation problems at the base, but says its soldiers were not responsible for the outbreak.

No formal or independent investigation has taken place despite calls from Haitian human-rights groups and U.S. health care experts.

Transmitted by feces, the disease can be all but prevented if people have access to safe drinking water and regularly wash their hands.

Listen to Chris Altieri's report: