Haitian-American officials to U.S. State Department: Don’t intervene in cholera lawsuit

Haitian-American elected officials are asking the U.S. State Department not to side with the United Nations in a legal battle over a deadly cholera epidemic in Haiti that has killed more than 8,000 and sickened more than 700,000 Haitians.

State Sen. Linda Dorcena Forry of Massachusetts, a member of the National Haitian American Elected Officials Network, wrote to Secretary of State John Kerry on Thursday, saying the organization was “concerned that the U.N. will now try to prevent the victims from having their day in court by asking your Department to intervene in favor of its impunity.”

“We urge you and your Department to stand for justice and international law by refusing to intervene and letting the cholera victims take their case to court,” she said in the letter.

Forry did not elaborate on why the network or lawyers who sued the U.N. in October on behalf of victims of the waterborne disease believe the U.N. would seek the State Department’s support.