FT271

On 16 November 2010, news broke that people in disaster-struck Haiti were rioting against UN Peacekeepers and medical workers, preventing the latter from dealing with a major outbreak of cholera. The rioters believed the disease had been brought into their country by the Nepalese troops of MINUSTAH, the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (the Nepalese were later cleared of the smear). By impeding the aid workers, the riots were actually causing more people to die of the disease.

We’ve been here before. When Asiatic cholera first attacked Britain in 1831–32, riots broke out in several urban areas, the targets being doctors, who were frequently prevented from attending to the sick.