Haiti suffers deadly cholera outbreak in wake of Hurricane Matthew disaster (Reuters)
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has apologised for the deadly cholera outbreak in Haiti that claimed around 9,300 lives and infected over 800,000 people in 2010. He admitted that peacekeepers from Nepal were responsible for bringing the disease into the nation, which was previously cholera-free.
In a report published on Thursday (1 December), the UN secretary-general said: "The preponderance of the evidence and the weight of the circumstantial evidence does lead to the conclusion that personnel associated with the Mirebalais United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti facility were the most likely source of introduction of cholera into Haiti."
The report was presented at a special meeting of the UN General Assembly in New York, where UN chief directly addressed the people of Haiti in three languages and said, "We apologise to the Haitian people. We simply did not do enough with regard to the cholera outbreak and spread in Haiti. We are profoundly sorry for our role.
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