Haiti deteriorating amid cholera outbreak and violence

Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Dec 15, 2010 / 00:12 am

The cholera outbreak in Haiti has caused a deteriorating situation that could cause 200,000 deaths without intervention, a Catholic priest in the country has warned.

Fr. Antonio Menegon, head of the Camillian Mission in Haiti, told Fides news agency that the situation is “dramatic” because of the violence raging in the country after the elections.

“Everything is closed and blocked,” he reported, noting the closure of ports and airports.

“Because of the violence, the United States and Canada have closed their embassies. The stores have been besieged. We cannot supply medicines or oil, everything is closed,” he said.

“Our hospital continues to welcome people sick with cholera. Some have died, others recovered. In one family … 25 have died,” Fr. Menegon reported.

He said the hospital is working with others to try to curb the emergency and has received aid from the Camillian Province in Turin.

“There are many problems and the situation is getting worse.”

Fr. Crescenzo Mazzella, who is also in Haiti, told Fides that relief workers have received medicines sent by air with the Red Cross nurses but supplies are increasingly problematic.

“Help us, here they need everything,” he urged.

Fr. Massimo, another Camillian priest in the western Tiburon Peninsula town of Jeremie, reported that there are 500 confirmed dead there but the true number is twice that. There are sick and dying even in religious houses and in public hospitals there are thousands of abandoned and infected people.

Haiti’s Public Health and Population Ministry reports that more than 2,300 have died and more than 100,000 infected with cholera. In the last three days 130 people have died, according to Fox News.

About 748 people have died in the northern province of Artibonite, where the disease was first reported. A French medical study has claimed the outbreak has its source in human waste which drained into a river from an encampment of Nepalese soldiers who are members of the U.N. Mission for Stabilization in Haiti.

Haitians have demonstrated against U.N. troops because of the accusations.