Story highlights Epidemic has killed 6,700 people and sickened 485,000

Post-quake epidemic has been linked to Nepalese peacekeepers

Waste was improperly dumped into river, report says

(CNN) More than 5,000 Haitian cholera victims have filed a petition with the United Nations, demanding millions of dollars in compensation for their suffering in an epidemic widely blamed on Nepalese peacekeepers, the victims' lawyers said Tuesday.

The epidemic, which has killed 6,700 people and sickened 485,000, was linked to peacekeepers from Nepal, according to a report released in May by an U.N.-appointed panel of experts.

The strain of cholera did not originate in Haiti, the report said, but was "very similar" to those circulating in South Asia.

The victims filed their petitions with the claims unit of the U.N. Stabilization Mission and at the United Nations in New York, said one of their lawyers, Brian Concannon of the Boston-based Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti.

Concannon said Haitians who were sickened are demanding $50,000 each; the loved ones of those who are killed are seeking $100,000.

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