Woman at Leogane camp saying the latrines behind her are full and smell foul. Photo credit: Haiti Grassroots Watch

Haiti should focus on stemming the cholera outbreak that has killed more than 7,000 people since 2010, rather than on levying blame against the source of the disease, UN special envoy to Haiti, Bill Clinton, said. While studies have suggested that the cholera came from a Nepalese soldier serving as a peacekeeper, Clinton pointed out that the country’s lack of proper sanitation was the real cause of the outbreak. [1]

In November 2011, the Boston-based Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti (IJDH) filed a demand for hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation from Haitian cholera victims. [2]

Money to empty refugee camp toilets has run out

Clinton’s own foundation, together with UNICEF and USAID, supplied some 11,000 mobile toilets for the refugee camps that emerged after the 2010 Haiti earthquake. The NGOs that distributed the toilets and paid for them to be emptied are now pulling out one by one, leaving overflowing toilets behind, according to an IPS report. [3]

Donor funds are being used to set up excreta treatment centres, one is now in operation in Morne-à-Cabri while a second centre is planned for Titanye, but these are not servicing the remaining refugee camps, home to nearly half a million people.

Related news:

• Haiti: study suggests UN force source of cholera strain that killed 5,500 people, E-Source, 15 Jul 2011
• Humanitarian crises and sustainable sanitation: lessons from Eastern Chad, Sanitation Updates, 16 Mar 2012

Related web sites:

• Practical Action – Water & Sanitation Resources for Recovery and Reconstruction
• Haiti Reconstruction Fund
• WHO – Cholera

Sources:

• [1] AP, Former President Clinton urges officials to stem Haiti cholera outbreak, Washington Post, 07 Mar 2012
• [2] Haiti: cholera victims demand UN compensation, Sanitation Updates, 09 Nov 2011
• [3] Phares Jerome and Valery Daudier, Money for cleaning toilets in Haiti down the drain? – Part 1, IPS, 07 Mar 2012