Current affairs. And well come again to rewind today we rewind to 2013 when after the earthquake of 2010 a cholera epidemic hit haiti and killed thousands the outbreak was the worst in recent history and as a. Team found out the source of the outbreak was surprising to many including it seems to those initially responsible later well find out if there is hope for haiti to reddick a cholera once and for all as it has been for the worlds wealthiest countries but 1st lets watch haiti in the time of cholera. Haiti october 2010 looking back at a hospital in a small rural town north of the capital. These were the 1st victims of a horrific unknown disease in a country still reeling from a devastating earthquake. Patients were dying in the space of a few hours children were specially vulnerable. Aljazeera was the 1st news channel on the scene. In the following days and weeks we tracked the epidemic as it ripped across the country. Leaving dozens then hundreds and soon thousands of haitians dead in its wake feel wide reported from war zones for years and from haiti since the day after the earthquake they received 43 bodies but this was the new disaster that shocked the world cholera could somehow arrived in haiti. And it wasnt long before rumors that u. N. Nepalese peacekeepers were involved led us to a base on the banks of the countrys largest river what are you taking why youre getting there but were not being told exactly whats going on here but this study smells like sewage thats right there in the liquid seems to be draining into this river just a few meters away that flows into the nearby town of nearby they. Back then it felt like that stumbled on the scene of a crime. Now after a series of investigations including by the u. N. Itself it seems thats exactly what did happen. In the more than 2 years since we 1st visited this site almost everything that we suspected from the scenes that we found now appears to be true scientists have said that the cholera found in that river is almost identical to a strain of the disease found in the poll before those soldiers were deployed even bill clinton the u. N. Special envoy to haiti has said that u. N. Peacekeepers from that base all the likely source of the disease in haiti but the one thing that hasnt happened is that the u. N. Hasnt accepted any kind of liability for bringing the epidemic to this country in fact at this point they still wont even talk about. It. Its been more than 2 years since cholera appeared in haiti. And were joining into one of the most isolated areas of the country. Communities up here in the mountains surrounding the arctic river almost completely cut off from basic services. Up here catching any kind of disease is a serious matter. Is impossible really to madge and how somebody could get along like this to medical facilities within a few hours to save lives from cholera this is the kind of scenario here and the reality is a many of them dont see what i weigh now to a funeral the very top of this mountain for a man who didnt make him. When he died from cholera various fusion was 64 years old. He was the leader of the community in this tiny mountaintop village and the father of 3. Very use fell ill just days ago. From his house its about 5 hours walk to the nearest clinic. I get the only level where they are. Living and you buy that for me. As a u. N. Helicopter flies over the funeral were told that nobody here has any idea how the outbreak started. In villages like this across the country this is a scene thats been repeated thousands of times for use is the latest victim of a disease unknown in haiti 2 years ago. But its now a leading cause of death in the country. For reeses death from cholera wont actually be counted in any official statistics there are no ministry of Health Personnel who know about this or n. G. O. S this is just one example of how the death toll from this epidemic could be much higher than anyone knows. Cholera victims have gathered for a monthly meeting to discuss ways of dealing with the epidemic in their midst one that we learned as it goes settlement that it didnt if youre not. Going to have agreed with me so that you want to. Look it up im ok who gave to someone to get anybody. To talk you move. Everyone in this meeting has either been infected with the disease or had a Family Member die out so how many people here actually know somebody that is dying of color you know youre going to get im not the only one you are mother my mother. Is the meeting adjourns were told of an urgent new case. An elderly woman living close by who is in a critical condition. Santillan is losing strength fast. But her relatives are worried the journey down the mountain might kill her. The sun is very bright for this time of day so they were going to wait until later weve offered to give them a lift and drive them all the way down the mountain to the nearest cholera treatment center. They decide to make a break for its taking it in turns to carry her over the rice fields along month parts to where the road begins. This is haiti in the time of cholera. Communities living in fear. Each day a new race for survival. Santillan did reach the clinic before losing her strength. But in the end it wasnt enough. A few weeks later she succumbed to cholera a body taken back home and buried in the mountains. While the death toll from color continues to rise a new fight for justice has begun mario shows it is the most famous lawyer in haiti. Hes one landmark victories for victims of political persecution. Today hes collecting medical records. With very limited resources mario is representing thousands of haitians whove been affected by color its the case of his life theyre trying to sue the United Nations did this with money we dont have and they have a lot of own good cause and i guess we have only thought of. The lawsuits filed in november 2011 claims that u. N. Failures to screen its soldiers for color and follow International Rules on Waste Disposal constitute gross negligence what are they doing are they gathering yeah yeah i mean here its based on the uns own investigation which concluded that the nepalese base leaking sewage into the river was a likely source of the outbreak manual thank you but was. Not didnt well. I dont but it never got out. And its composed of thousands of stories of personal loss each one documented by mario and his team. The next meeting is in me about a m i watch on the bus an arduous if the town thats home to the u. N. Base where the disease is known to have started. And we have to pauls husband was one of the very 1st to die. She doesnt know exactly where hes buried back then the death toll was so high the bodies were being dumped in mass graves. Today she and her daughter lisa a filing a new claim. Why is. The familys only son fritz now dying 3 weeks ago from cholera he was 34 not a man woman but invented in that fashion. You know what was and is a. Funny. Thing is there was that in india when you need the wounded man like we did. Back at their headquarters in downtown Port Au Prince the fruits of the lawyers painstaking labor is kept in a dusty storeroom still waiting for the day it will be used in court. These are all the case files in here yes weve got our cases they fess up that was and 5 not only were for theyve added a form would not arise they said we. Well well give you know on its. Own to die yeah i dont know when it was in about time with me but its being more than a year moment in here and youve heard nothing nothing nothing faced with the un silence the lawyers decided to expand the lawsuits. Adding more names to the thousands who already filed a complaint un have doors for you and must. But the point what human rights i know will continue to fight until the day they dont respond will file complaints for all people. The 2010 quake killed more than 220000 people. Those who lost their lives are remembered each year with dignitaries from around the world coming to pay their respects. But for those who have dined and continue to die from the cholera epidemic there is no day of mourning. And even senior u. N. Officials staying silent on whether the victims families deserve any compensation for their loss you said the u. N. Introduced cholera to haiti do you think they should be liable for all of those deaths thats nearly 8000 people i mean you know thats a decision someone else thats like now i think the most important thing is that the u. N. Asked paul farmer to oversee the response and weve got. The. Infection and mortality rate cut in half and i think it can be contained so im encouraged by that to say that now some people already dead thanks the president you can release an operational details from he should answer for those people getting ready to pray for you mr president thank you. All the ceremonies. Over in the cavalcade is now leaving and we still havent gone any answers bill clinton theyre saying its not for him so decide whether or not the uns libel but hes actually sad that the u. N. Brought the diseased to this island so if you can answer the question about accountability its not really clear who can on neck stop u. N. Headquarters in haiti here at least weve be able to find out why you marry owes clients could be weighty over a year for responds to their law suits weve been promised an interview with nigel fish a the head of the u. N. Mission in haiti thats known points acronym minu star oh hi its not nigel fishes office it doesnt look like its going to happen but it was are proving difficult to get out oldest ones us do we can to try to catch up with them just as we were about to give up with suze knowledge will fish is is the man weve been trying for find off the noon it seems hes finally turned up so it will see if hes actually going to answer questions term to me sebastian from aljazeera so nice to see again at her very well i think you story its a q so i return to sort of the got to some of its arent a how long the need i mean we we need really need it is much thomas possible but its been ok called to try to but them ask you some questions now of a show and then we dumb this stuff with the one thing that we found difficult to talk to about with senior official say is the question of liability nobody seems to be able to talk about that even what want what it looks the through you wait we cannot wire out as out this as an official here in haiti and a Civil Servant right now i cannot speak about it who kind we get answers from what i think it has to be it u. N. Headquarters and yoke it is i dont know whether youll get announcer of this process at this point but the people who are reviewing this all right headquarters there in the Legal Department they working with the secretary Generals Office on this we followed my advice. It seemed like the only way of getting any answers for the families in haiti was to head to a loose decisions a seemingly taken. New york. Before we even arrived at u. N. Headquarters we got word from mary was legal partners in the us that a decision had already been made they sent me an email the shortly before they made the public announcement they sent an email with the letter. The letter was one paragraph about how the un was sorry about the color and the harm that i caused several paragraphs of all of the things theyre doing to combat cholera and then a paragraph at the end saying that they were not going to respond justly to the cholera victims human rights lawyer Brian Concannon says hed been expecting the u. N. Would try to avoid paying compensation for the families for the lack of any explanation him completely off gone as also slap in the face to the to the 660000 haitians have contracted cholera and the 8000 people died so far at least their families. The un announced its decision to the world in a brief 5 minute statement there was no official press conference and since then as in haiti there had been no further comment to the media about ive asked several officials who can actually talk to us inside this building and the one person weve been told we can interview is a spokesperson for the secretary general claim is found to be outside the scope of section 29. 00 of the convention are not receivable the consequence of a finding that a claim is not receivable is that the claim will not receive further consideration by the organization. That stain was very brief it was this is a brief statement and so legal statement and that someone or want to say but why is the claim not receivable while is not the United Nations process of this custom public with the. Tells of our responses to claims against your organization so you dont have to explain themselves no youre saying that not only do they not get compensation but you dont even have to explain why but thats exactly what i said thats the management in lives policy what would you say to a Family Member in haiti who has had somebody die. As a result of this disease well i would basically i would basically say as a u. N. Employer as a human being as well i would simply say im really sorry about your loss im really sorry that cholera happened we dont exactly know what the origins are but were working as hard as we can to address we want to know what the origins of the Scientific Community is united are our panel told us that it was due to a confluence of circumstances including being brought to haiti that most likely by u. N. Weapons keepers thats not what it said wait a minute so the u. N. Still maintains that nepalese soldiers werent the most likely source of color in haiti we asked one of their own scientists they found a range of evidence pointing towards the u. N. Peacekeepers including that the type of cholera was very similar to a recent outbreak in nepal since the time of our report our conclusions have been significantly strengthened the nepal strain of cholera westphal the sequence and compare it to the haitian strain and when they got that direct comparison it was found that of the 4000000 base pairs in colorado there was only one base pair that with different between the 2 strains and genetics we consider that an exact match as far as we know all the claims that they are giving us is not a non receivable thats under international law. Stonewalled by this official we designed it there must be someone at u. N. Headquarters who could explain the organizations decision we spoke to the press office before security could shut us down. Eventually we found a more senior. Spokesperson i mean is there anyone else who can because theres a he was a he was literally reading from a piece of paper it seems a little odd to me that you were interviewing me about the interview you had with my text only trying to get answers and he wasnt able to give any hint he just said its something that i dont have answers to well why do you think it would be any different with me or anyone who would have it was a. Question you asked me that question 3 times now. I think you know what you know is true so i dont think you should be quite polite if you switched off. And dont you think dont you think that. At every turn the story from u. N. Officials was the same outright refusal to accept any responsibility yet a complete inability to explain why. It was the same from haiti to new york. From those on the ground to those at the very top but the secretary general why explanation is there for the fact that theres no compensation being paid to the families of the other victims and i think i have made it quite clear that the reason why this case is that this evil and with your decision ultimately whose decision was it in the end was this you just like this is all that they store or. A careful close range of doing its the right decision. I think. For the families of the victim wasnt sure it wasnt of the lady that. So he was saying theres no possibility its all of speaking with any one Legal Counsel. Following the secretary generals advice i did put several calls in but was told that the uns Legal Counsel was unavailable for comment so we spotted the secretary general again in this room were going to try to catch many comes out. And. Nothing but im going to access it all the time so thank you so you said we could get up to the. Recession. Its a. Good thing. To know you have no information to basically count if youre telling the truth. Were just being told that the media office has said that they dont actually want us back in the building because of displeasure of the fact that weve been asking questions to officials in the hallways they said they were effectively banned from filming in the United Nations complex. On an intellectual level but the uns rejection of our claims was expected but on an emotional level the uns rejection is still very hard to take because youre left thinking about people in who lost their their child. The family in sodo who lost a father and mother and are condemned to generational poverty and you think that their chances of getting justice have been reduced. So. These. Levy. In haiti along with. The costs of burying their dead have left the family who we met with mario and his lawyers civilian death. Their sons grave is in a cemetery close to the house for the death of the last male in the family has left them with no reliable income theyve just had to pull his 11 year old daughter answer school. No maam the value of. The law if you look at i was in. When i do you know. The uns decision hasnt even been made when we 1st met miss family. But it seemed they had a sense of what was coming. To. Related you know but then. Remember. We give up on him on this much i mean. Weve got valuable you want to. Apart from anger over compensation. Maybe more worrying to officials back in new york is the last thing damaging to haiti to the reputation of an organization thats supposed to stand for justice and equality around the world. In 2016 bank human the same u. N. Secretary general questioned in our report finally acknowledged that the u. N. Did play a role in the 1st outbreak and called for a new set of actions in haiti but will that be enough speaking with us today as a human rights lawyer to update us on the situation to date the u. S. Eradication efforts have been wholly inadequate we have seen cholera rates been brought down after the immediate surge of cases but but they sense gone back up again and in 2016 weve seen cholera cases at a higher rate than we saw in 20142015 i was even before Hurricane Matthew struck and now in southern Haiti Cholera is an enormous emergency the u. N. Did launch in 2012 a plan to eliminate cholera from haiti together with the haitian government but that plan has only been funded 18 percent as of earlier this year and so for several years its been stagnant there hasnt been enough money to even treat the incoming patients that were trying to seek care and Cholera Treatment Centers we start Treatment Centers being shut down and so the need for robust funding is continues to be enormous and incredibly grave what we have seen though is that now theres been the launch of a new pope. And that focus says more more directly on getting color under control and i think were hopeful that over the next 2 years if this plan is immediately funded that we can see a long overdue drop in the death rate and haiti communities are also asking for compensation for people who have died for people who have suffered and they continue to field a very direct impacts of color on their daily life today. 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