Haiti cholera victims threaten to sue UN

A group of lawyers representing cholera victims in Haiti has threatened to take legal action against the United Nations.

James Bays, Al Jazeera’s diplomatic editor, reporting from the UN headquarters in New York on Wednesday said the lawyers representing the victims and their families have “presenting a very clear message”.

“They say they are giving the UN an ultimatum – they have 60 days in which to admit liability, to pay out compensation, or, the lawyers say, they’re going to sue,” Bays said. 

The outbreak has brought devastation to a population already struggling to recover from the 2010 earthquake that killed more than 300,000 people earlier that year.

More than 8,000 people died and hundreds of thousands more were infected in the epidemic that followed and continued well into 2012.

UN peacekeepers have been accused of sparking the outbreak, although the UN has refused to pay compensation to the families of victims of the cholera outbreak.

The UN has repeatedly denied any responsibility for the cholera outbreak.

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