PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — An outbreak of cholera has killed more than 1,000 people, the Haitian government said Tuesday as it sent top officials to the country’s north in hopes of quelling violent protests against U.N. peacekeepers accused of spreading the disease.
Even as President Rene Preval appealed for calm, the disease continued spreading across Haiti and potentially the island of Hispaniola. Authorities in the Dominican Republic reported their country’s first confirmed case of cholera in Higuey, near the tourist mecca of Punta Cana.
Additional Photos
The man was a Haitian citizen who had recently returned from a 12-day vacation in neighboring Haiti. The news alarmed Dominicans, but the spread of the disease is easily prevented with good hygiene and sanitation, and no locally originated cholera cases have been reported.
Haiti’s police chief, the health minister and other Cabinet officials headed to Cap-Haitien, the second largest city, where protesters erected barricades of flaming tires and other debris and clashed with U.N. troops. At least two protesters died, one of them shot by a member of the multinational peacekeeping force that has been trying to keep order since 2004.
The cholera outbreak that began last month has brought increased misery to the entire country, still struggling with the aftermath of last January’s earthquake. But anger has been particularly acute in the north, where the infection is newer, health care sparse and people have died at more than twice the rate of the region where the epidemic was first noticed.
The health ministry said Tuesday that the official death toll hit 1,034 as of Sunday. Figures are released after two days of review.
Aid workers say the official numbers may understate the epidemic. While the ministry of health says more than 16,700 people have been hospitalized nationwide, Doctors Without Borders reports that its clinics alone have treated 16,500.
Local reporters said Tuesday that a police station was burned in Cap-Haitien and rocks thrown at peacekeeping bases.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
Success. Please wait for the page to reload. If the page does not reload within 5 seconds, please refresh the page.
Enter your email and password to access comments.
Hi, to comment on stories you must . This profile is in addition to your subscription and website login.
Already have a commenting profile? .
Invalid username/password.
Please check your email to confirm and complete your registration.
Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.
Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.