ARTICLE - UNREST RESTRICTS AID OPERATIONS

HAITI ELECTION UNREST RESTRICTS AID OPERATIONS - UN RELIEF CHIEF
(ReliefWeb) - Source: AlertNet

LONDON - Riots in Haiti over disputed election results are hampering efforts to tackle a cholera epidemic in the impoverished country, which is still reeling from January's earthquake and recent floods, the United Nations' top humanitarian official said on Thursday.

Thousands of protesters rampaged through the capital Port-au-Prince and other cities on Wednesday, hurling stones and setting up burning barricades of timber, boulders and tyres, in unrest sparked by presidential poll results they say were rigged by the ruling government coalition.

"Certainly over the last couple of days, the insecurity is having an impact because people who are working in NGOs or for U.N. organisations from the humanitarian side have not managed to get out, get supplies out to people who need it," Valerie Amos, the U.N.'s under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, told AlertNet in an interview.

"Our message to those involved in the political process in Haiti is that they need to do all they can to reassure the population so we are able to get out and help people. We don't want people to die from this, they don't need to," she said by telephone from New York.

At least two people have been killed in the violence, triggered by an announcement that former first lady Mirlande Manigat and government technocrat Jude Celestin would face a deciding second round in January following a turbulent Nov. 28 vote. Many of the protesters are supporters of the third-placed candidate, popular musician Michel Martelly.

The unrest seems to have dashed international hopes that the U.N.-backed elections could create a stable new leadership to steer Haiti's recovery from the huge Jan. 12 earthquake that killed more than 250,000 people.

CHOLERA FEAR 'PALPABLE'
In the meantime, the Western hemisphere's poorest country is battling a cholera epidemic that has killed at least 2,000 people since mid-October.

Amos, who visited Haiti last month, said people's fear of the disease "is very strong and it's palpable", and more needs to be done to raise awareness about how to prevent and treat it.

"We need thousands more workers to go out and continue these (public hygiene) messages ... we need to to be doing it through radio, through new media, posters, television campaigns," Amos said.

"The key thing is we have to maintain this level of information raising because people are deeply suspicious, they are deeply worried. Even those who want to seek treatment sometimes are prevented from doing so. They are worried about the response they may get from their neighbours."

Referring to a leaked report by a French epidemiologist which found that U.N. troops are the most likely source of the cholera epidemic, Amos noted that tests carried out so far have not linked back to the world body's peacekeepers, but added: "We're happy to look at whatever other information exists."

IVORY COAST
On Ivory Coast, Amos said the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), which she heads, is reviewing a decision to close its office in the West African country, where a dispute over the outcome of a presidential vote has raised the risk of renewed conflict.

"Cote d'Ivoire is one of those countries where humanitarian needs had scaled down to such an extent that we were transitioning out ... at the end of this year, closing down the OCHA office and leaving any residual humanitarian issues ... (to) the office of the U.N. resident coordinator," she said.

"We're looking at the implications of the current political situation and what that might mean in terms of humanitarian issues."

The political deadlock in Ivory Coast, a nation still divided after a 2002-2003 civil war, has raised concerns among neighbouring states of a refugee crisis in a region still recovering from three civil wars in the past two decades.

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