Two killed in anti-UN riots over cholera outbreak

ANTI-UN riots spread to several Haitian cities yesterday as protesters blaming foreign peacekeepers for a deadly outbreak of cholera exchanged gunfire with soldiers.

The protests left at least two people dead. A demonstrator was shot dead by a UN peacekeeper in Quartier Morin, near Haiti’s second-largest city of Cap-Haitien.

Haiti Senate President Kelly Bastien said that a second demonstrator was shot and killed in Cap-Haitien itself.

The 12,000-member UN force said that at least six of its personnel were wounded in protests at Hinche in the central plateau.

The protests apparently began in Cap-Haitien yesterday and within hours had paralysed much of the northern port city.

As the day went on, other protests broke out in surrounding towns and the central plateau.

A police station was burned in Cap-Haitien and rocks thrown at peacekeeping bases. A protest was also reported in the north-western city of Gonaives, but UN police said it ended peacefully.

The UN Stabilisation Mission in Haiti, or MINUSTAH, dismissed the protests as politically motivated, linking them to the November 28 presidential elections.

The UN’s World Health Organisation said efforts should focus on controlling the disease, not determining its cause.

A spokesman said: “At some time we will do further investigation but it’s not a priority right now.”

The UN said local rumours that Nepalese troops were to blame for the outbreak was “misinformation”.

The cholera backlash plays upon some Haitians’ long-standing resentment of the 12,000-member UN military mission, which has been the dominant security force in Haiti since 2004. It is also rooted in fear of a disease previously unknown to Haiti and internationally shared suspicion that the UN base could have been a source of the infection that has left nearly 1,000 dead.