PORT-AU-PRINCE – Haitian president Michel Martelly has condemned the alleged rape of an 18-year-old local man by Uruguayan UN naval troops, in the latest incident to threaten the image of UN peacekeepers in Haiti.
Public anger in the poor, earthquake-ravaged Caribbean nation has been rising over a video shot by a mobile phone camera and circulating on the internet that shows laughing Uruguayan marines pinning the young Haitian face down on a mattress and apparently assaulting him sexually in a southern town.
Haitian authorities, the UN Mission in Haiti and Uruguay’s defence ministry have launched an investigation. The four suspects have been detained and Uruguay’s navy has replaced the head of its naval contingent with the UN mission in Haiti.
UN peacekeepers in Haiti have caused anger before, notably over allegations that Nepalese UN troops brought a cholera epidemic to the country after their camp latrines contaminated a local river. – (Reuters)