The United Nations has, at long last, accepted some responsibility that it played a part in a cholera epidemic that broke out in Haiti in 2010 and has since killed at least 9,200 people and infected nearly a million people.
This is the first time the U.N. has acknowledged that it bears a duty toward the victims. It is a significant step forward in the quest for accountability and justice.
Haiti is one of the poorest countries in the world. It is frequently devastated by disasters—both natural and man-made. Yet cholera was not one of its problems before 2010. Then a group of U.N. peacekeepers was sent to help after an earthquake.
A boy bathes in a camp for individuals who have lost their homes in the Jan. 12, 2010 earthquake, in Cite Soleil, a historically impoverished area of Port au Prince, Haiti, on Oct. 31, 2010. Spencer Platt/Getty Images
