Body-Collection & Burial Teams In Haiti Attacked By Stone-Throwing Crowds - Miami Herald

[hatrack]

CARREFOUR, Haiti -- Stacked with body bags full of corpses of cholera victims, a converted flatbed truck and a colorful tap-tap taxi swerved into the yard of the mayor's office and their drivers asked where to bury the dead. ``Get out of here. Get out of here before they start throwing stones,'' a city hall employee screamed, her voice panicky, her hands flaring.

A crowd started circling. Three poorly armed police officers showed up and announced more were on the way. Then the city hall employee jumped into a car and motioned the corpse vehicles to follow. The angry crowd shouted and began throwing rocks. Frightened by a disease never before known in this nation, Haitians are running scared. Residents are stoning the dead and their handlers, local mayors are refusing their burial, and families are abandoning bodies on the streets.

Others have taken to the streets in protests against U.N. peacekeepers because they believe the outbreak may have originated in a U.N. camp. Officials suspect the protests may be politically motivated to prevent the Nov. 28 elections. `It's a very alarming situation for Haitians,'' said Emilie Clotaire, an administrator at the Adventist Hospital in Carrefour.

Earlier this week, the hospital had its first cholera-related death, and after frustrating attempts to get someone from the Ministry of Health to fetch the 31-year-old's body, it ended up hiring someone to do the job, executive director Yolande Simeon said. ``They were stoned when they arrived at the cemetery,'' she said. The dead man's ``family and friends abandoned him.''

EDIT

http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/11/19/1934890/living-fear-the-dead-in-cholera.html

[aquart]

1. I take it we haven't sent a dime of the promised money yet?

[Taverner]

2. I'm sure if we did, it went to paying off the interest of their other loans

Gotta pay the WTO ya know!

[Poll_Blind]

3. They have to start burning those bodies. I read the whole article and...

...the situation is far worse (especially on page 2 of the article) and your snippets show- not your fault, hard article to grab a snippet from and do it justice.

They leave those bodies out and animals are going to go at them and it's going to be Medieval shortly thereafter. It's not far from that now.

PB

[XemaSab]

6. It's been medieval there for a long, long time

What's happening there is just an all-too-predictable plague event. :(

They don't have a SINGLE wastewater treatment plant in the entire country, and they never had one.

They shit in the river, wash in the river, swim in the river, and drink from the river.

We are going to see a casualty rate that makes the initial earthquake look like a car crash on the interstate.

And the really depressing thing is that this was ALL preventable, if we'd taken it seriously 10, 20, 30, 40, 100 years ago. :(

[Speck Tater]

4. A Glimpse of our own future as unemployment continues to climb and infrastructure crumbles. nt

[FedUpWithIt All]

5. I remember repeatedly being told that things were being handled according to established

emergency response criteria. When concerns were raised about the slow aid and inefficient response, some were all about reviewing the phases of standard emergency response. Wonder where the "experts" are with their "This is completely normal." assessments now? It was evident from the start that all was not well with the relief efforts in Haiti.