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 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 neighboring 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 Sanitation Campaign,” noting that one out of two
Haitians lacks access to adequate sanitation systems.
The program seeks to train people to build latrines, as well as
installing clean water filter systems at local schools, health
centers, and marketplaces, Ban said.
Together with the World Bank the United Nations is targeting 55
communities affected by the disease, covering 3.8 million people,
within the next five years.
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Donors had been slow to respond to the cholera elimination campaign,
Ban told the Miami Herald newspaper, adding the United Nations has
struggled to raise an initial $400 million needed in the first two
years.
Ban also plans to travel to the Dominican Republic on Tuesday for
talks with President Danilo Medina and will address a joint session
of Congress.
Lawyers have filed three lawsuits against the United Nations seeking
compensation for Haitian victims of the epidemic.
The Nepalese troops were stationed near a tributary of the
Artibonite River and discharged raw sewage that carried a strain of
cholera, sparking the epidemic, the lawsuit said.
An independent panel appointed by Ban to study the epidemic issued a
2011 report that did not determine conclusively how the cholera was
introduced to Haiti. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention said evidence strongly suggested U.N. peacekeepers from
Nepal were the source.
Some senior U.N. officials, including human rights chief Navi Pillay,
have said Haiti's cholera victims should be compensated.
(Writing and additional reporting by David Adams; Editing by Jim
Loney and Eric Walsh)
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