Ban Ki-moon Apologizes For UN Role In Haiti Cholera Epidemic

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has apologised for the first time to the people of Haiti for the international organisation’s role in a deadly cholera outbreak that has killed more than 9,300 people and infected over 800,000.

“On behalf of the United Nations, I want to say very clearly we apologise to the Haitian people,” he said three times, in Haitian Creole, French and English, to the UN General Assembly on Thursday.

“We simply did not do enough with regards to the cholera outbreak and its spread in Haiti … We are profoundly sorry for our role,” Ban said.

According to numerous independent experts, cholera was introduced to Haiti by infected Nepalese UN peacekeepers sent to the Caribbean country after the massive 2010 earthquake.

Cholera, a disease that is transmitted through contaminated drinking water and causes acute diarrhea, is a major challenge in a country with poor sanitary conditions.

The UN reiterated its rejection of claims that it is also legally responsible for the damages from the health emergency.

“We do not change our basic legal position,” UN Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson told reporters on Thursday.

The UN chief also formally presented the 193-nation General Assembly with a “new approach,” a two-pronged programme to help the families of the cholera victims and support the battle against the disease.

The UN hopes the new proposal will raise $400m over two years, but funding for prior UN assistance to Haiti has been slow to arrive.

Read More: aljazeera

#HurricaneMatthew: 1.4 Million Need Help In Haiti

Haiti faces a crisis that requires a “massive response” from the international community, the United Nations has said, with at least 1.4 million people needing emergency aid after Hurricane Matthew.

The storm killed almost 1,000 people in the impoverished Caribbean nation, with that toll likely to rise as rescue workers reach previously inaccessible areas.

Matthew, the most powerful Atlantic storm since 2007, last week levelled homes, fouled water sources and killed livestock, leaving victims pleading for help to arrive quickly.

“Some towns and villages have been almost wiped off the map,” UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told reporters.

The UN has launched a $120m flash appeal to cover Haiti’s needs for the next three months.

After pummelling Haiti on October 4 as a monster Category 4 storm, packing winds of 230km an hour, Matthew slammed into the southeastern United States, where it killed at least 20 people.

Hundreds of people were rescued by boat and helicopter as floodwaters inundated towns in the state of North Carolina on Monday, and officials warned that life-threatening flooding from swollen rivers would continue for days.

Read More: aljazeera

Haiti death toll from Hurricane Matthew passes 1,000.

The number of people killed in Haiti by Hurricane Matthew has hit 1,000 as the country battles new deaths from a cholera outbreak and buries bodies in mass graves.

The powerful hurricane, the fiercest Caribbean storm in nearly a decade, slammed into Haiti on Tuesday, whipping it with 230 kilometre an hour winds and torrential rains.

The country is struggling to cope with a rise in cholera cases with officials warning that contaminated water and a lack of hygiene are posing serious risks to thousands of people in the impoverished country.

While the capital and biggest city, Port-au-Prince, was largely spared, the south suffered devastation. Aerial footage from the hardest-hit towns shows a ruined landscape of shanties with tin roofs blown away and downed trees everywhere. Mud from overflowing rivers covered the ground.

Citing local officials, Reuters news agency reported that at least 1,000 Haitians had been killed.

Authorities began burying the dead in mass graves in some areas – such as Jeremie, a city of 30,000 people – as bodies started to decompose, said Kedner Frenel, a government official.

Frenel said there was great concern about cholera spreading, and authorities were focused on getting water, food, and medication to thousands of people living in shelters.

Cholera causes severe diarrhoea and can kill within hours if untreated. It is spread through contaminated water and has a short incubation period, which leads to rapid outbreaks.

Government teams fanned out across the hard-hit southwestern tip of the country over the weekend to repair treatment centres and reach the epicentre of one outbreak.

In the village of Labei, locals said that the river had washed down cadavers from villages upstream. With nobody coming to move the corpses, residents used planks of driftwood to push them down the river and into the sea.

Down by the shore, the corpse of one man lay blistering in the sun. A few hundred metres to his left in a roadside gully, three dead goats stewed in the toxic slime.

“It seems to me like a nuclear bomb went off,” said Paul Edouarzin, a UN Environmental Programme employee.

“In terms of destruction – environmental and agricultural – I can tell you 2016 is worse than 2010,” he added, referring to the devastating 2010 earthquake from which Haiti has yet to recover.

Diarrhoea-stricken residents in the village of Chevalier were well aware of the nearby cholera outbreak, but had little option except to drink the brackish water from the local well, which they believed was already contaminated by dead livestock.

“We have been abandoned by a government that never thinks of us,” said Marie-Ange Henry, as she surveyed her smashed home.

She said Chevalier had yet to receive any aid and many, like her, were coming down with fever. Cholera, she feared, was on its way.

Up to 80 percent of crops in Haiti have been lost in some areas, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

CARE France, a humanitarian group, said about one million people were in need of urgent assistance, and that many had “nothing left except the clothes on their back”.

#HurricaneMatthew: Hundreds Dead In Haiti Storm Disaster

The death toll in Haiti as a result of Hurricane Matthew – the most powerful Caribbean storm in a decade – has soared to more than 300, officials say.

Some 50 people were reported killed in the town of Roche-a-Bateau alone.

The nearby city of Jeremie saw 80% of its buildings levelled. In Sud province 30,000 homes were destroyed.

The hurricane, now a Category Three storm with sustained winds of 120mph (193km/h), is heading up the coastline of the US state of Florida.

At 07:00 local time (11:00 GMT) Matthew was still off the coast, centred about 25 miles (40km) east of Cape Canaveral and moving north-north-west at about 14mph (22km/h), the National Hurricane Center said. It remains unclear whether it will make landfall.

 An extreme wind warning was issued for Cape Canaveral and Port Canaveral, Governor Rick Scott tweeted.
Read More: BBC

Weather Channel Meteorologist Receives Backlash for Saying Haiti is Deforested Because Children Eat the Trees

Weather Channel Meterologist Jen Delgado has found herself in a hurricane of trouble and criticism for her comments regarding events surrounding Hurricane Matthew.
During her live television report on Hurricane Mathew on Monday, Delgado noted that Haiti faced additional risk because the country had fewer trees than the Dominican Republic. She explained:

“That’s because this whole area has been essentially deforested”. “They take all the trees down, the burn the trees. Even the kids there, they’re so hungry, they actually eat the trees.”

She received backlash from twitter for her inaccurate comment:

 

 

 

 

Weather Channel CEO David Clark apologized for the error by writing:

“We are terribly sorry for an on air error and are taking measures to correct it,” Clark wrote. “It should not have happened period.”

Watch the video below:

https://youtu.be/JZbRIcYqL5o

HAITI EARTHQUAKE DEVASTATION…WE SEND OUR LOVE AND PRAYERS

The earthquake that hit Haiti raising fears hundreds of thousands of people may have been killed is the latest in a long line of stormy history of natural disasters to befall the country, the poorest country in the western hemisphere. Haiti has always been dependent on foreign aid in emergencies as hurricanes and flooding are perennial concerns for the country. In 1963,hurricane Flora (the 6th deadliest Atlantic hurricane in history devastated the island. Flora’s damage to crop and property was estimated by the US weather bureau to be between $125m and $180m killing 5000. The country was hit by two disasters in 2004. In May, flooding from heavy rains killed over 2000 people. In September ,mudslides and flooding caused by hurricane Jeane (the 12th deadliest Atlantic hurricane in history) killed over 3000 people mostly in Gonaives. In 2008, four storms stunned Haiti, tropical storm Fay, hurricane Gustav, hurricane Hauna and hurricane Ike resulted in heavy rains causing flooding.1000 people died while an unimaginable 800,000 people were rendered homeless. That’s about 10% of Haiti’s population. The damage caused was estimated at $1billion. The country has had to contend with an unending political turmoil in the midst of all this. After going through about three decades of despotic rule in the hands of Francois ‘‘Papa Doc’’ Duvalier and his son Jean-Claude ‘‘Baby Doc’’ Duvalier, the country elected Jean-Bertrand Aristide the slum president as president in 1990 only for him to be overthrown in 1991 then got restored by US troops. He was again ejected in a bloody coup in 2004 amidst several accusations. Haiti is a country in need. In need of love, of prayers and resources. If you have the means and resources, help relieve the sufferings of the Haitian people, give of your money but most importantly spare a thought and your prayers. Here at Omojuwa.com , we send our love and prayers.