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2010-10-22

2010-10-22: (A Cholera Outbreak Erupts in Haiti, Traced to a UN Peacekeeping Base, the International Force Sent to Stabilize Haiti Becoming the Vector of the…

Haitian

2010-10-22: (A Cholera Outbreak Erupts in Haiti, Traced to a UN Peacekeeping Base, the International Force Sent to Stabilize Haiti Becoming the Vector of the Worst Cholera Epidemic in the Western Hemisphere): On October 22, 2010, a cholera outbreak erupted in Haiti, eventually traced to a MINUSTAH base staffed by Nepalese peacekeepers whose sewage had contaminated the Artibonite River. The epidemic killed over ten thousand Haitians and sickened hundreds of thousands more. The cholera outbreak was a catastrophe layered on a catastrophe: the international force sent to stabilize Haiti after the earthquake had introduced a disease that Haiti had never previously experienced. The UN initially denied responsibility, a denial that compounded the outrage and deepened the resentment that many Haitians already felt toward the foreign military presence. The cholera epidemic demonstrated with lethal precision the paradox of international intervention in Haiti: the institutions designed to help could also harm, and the help came with conditions, consequences, and sometimes contamination that the helpers refused to acknowledge.