Special Report: Death and Disease in the Ivory Coast - The Toxic Dump Legacy

[Tyehimba]

Special Report: Death and Disease in the Ivory Coast - The Toxic Dump Legacy Pt 1

02/10/2007 |
By Godwin Nnanna

WHO has issued grim warnings over the predicted number of deaths due to the toxic dump

The warnings are grim. Abidjan may lose up to 1,000 more people in the next two years as a result of the after effects of the August 2006 toxic dump. Local authorities say not less than 70 people have so far died from inhaling the fumes; most of them children and the aged. Figures from the World Health Organization indicate that 135,000 people have sought medical treatment for various ailments arising from the toxic dump. The Ivorian Health ministry puts the figure at 131,113. A thousand deaths will mean plucking out one fifth of the population of Akouedo, one of the worst affected communities. Yet a WHO official in Abidjan says it is a conservative estimate. The casualties could be more.

Over 200 pupils aged between 5 and 14 in the affected communities have had to stop school because of sickness. One of them is 6 year-old Joel Sieh who lives with Sophie, his 28 year-old mother in Akouedo. “It is difficult to tell what is wrong with him. Sometimes he coughs as if he wants to empty his bowel; at other times his body is so hot and he complains of severe headache. At such times he behaves as though his head would fall off his shoulder,” Sophie explains of her son’s sickness.

Three days ago four young boys who have been sick since inhaling the chemicals last year died within a space of one week. “We are worried. Almost every household here has suffered such loss in the last 12 months,” says Maria Konan, another resident of Akouede. Since September last year when Joel’s ailment began, Sophie has been to many local clinics but his strange ailments will not go away. “All the medicines administered on him have not worked,” she says. There is no sign that Joel will return to school in the next few weeks. He still coughs intensely and mid-night fever is still a daily experience.

He has lost a whole year of schooling and will have to repeat it when he eventually returns to his class. Whether that will be this year, is something Sophie cannot tell. “My primary concern is to see him well,” she says. A mild, slender and hollow-cheeked petty trader, Sophie is a single mother. Her meagre income from the sale of foodstuff is all the family lives on. “They have wrecked me. My business is almost grounded yet the health of my son has not improved,” she laments. “It will never be well with whoever showed them the way to kouedo,” screamed Banny, Sophie’s younger sister, as she takes Afe from Sophie’s arms and places her in a wash bowl for bath. Afe is 3 and Sophie’s last child.


Dumping of deadly chemicals was morally reprehensible

She was born the very week that Anaky, her maternal uncle died. For Sophie and her children, Anaky was more than an uncle. He was the pillar of support. Even before Joel’s sickness started, raising her two kids without the help of a father was no mean task for Sophie. She hates to talk about her kid’s’father but insists that no matter the challenge, she is determined to ensure good health and a quality education for Joel and his sister.

Unlike most children of his age, Joel loves to go to school. He cries when he is not prepared in good time for school. Sophie doesn’t have to nag him to do his school work. Today however, things have changed. He cries very often because of the bouts of sickness he suffers. He is rarely strong enough to have time for school work. The most immediate challenge for Sophie now is how to raise the equivalent of $400 needed for Joel’s next series of tests and treatment. She refused the doctor’s attempt to hospitalize him two weeks ago, preferring instead to bring him regularly from home.

“Taking drugs on an empty stomach is an even more serious problem. It could create more problems for us. That’s why I refused the advice to take a bed in the hospital,”she explains. Trouble started for Joel and other residents of Akouedo and its environs on August 19, 2006 when Probo Koala, a cargo ship chartered by Trafigura BV, a Dutch company, offloaded a cocktail of liquid sludge containing large quantities of hydrocarbons. An evaluation by Greenpeace reveals that the hydrocarbons are contaminated with at least three substances: hydrogen sulphide, mercaptains and caustic soda. Hydrogen sulphide and mercaptans are toxic chemicals.

Hydrogen sulphide is a gas which smells strongly of ‘rotten eggs’ and is a potent poison of the respiratory system. Exposure to high levels in air in a confined space, experts warn, can lead rapidly to loss of consciousness, respiratory failure and death. Mercaptans, on the other hand, are highly volatile and very strongly smelling chemicals which case irritation to the eyes and respiratory system and can cause rapid onset of nausea. Local authorities report that since the toxic dump most people who live around the Akouedo have suffered symptoms such as respiratory problems, nausea, dizziness, vomiting (including throwing up blood), breathing difficulties and nosebleeds.

Some village elders blame their plight on the greed of local businessmen and politicians. “This is a case of commerce without conscience and politics without principles,” says Jean Coulibaly, a 50 year old father of two whom Black Britain met in Cocody, a downtown neighbourhood in Abidjan.

http://www.blackbritain.co.uk/news/details/2557/africa/

[Tyehimba]

Special Report: Death and Disease in the Ivory Coast - The Toxic Dump Legacy Pt 2
| 
By Godwin Nnanna
BlackBritain.co.uk

Africa has become a toxic dumping ground for European toxic waste


Coulibaly wants Compagnie Tommy, the local firm which took delivery of the slops to be brought to book. Tommy, as it is popularly called was established only a month before the slops were dumped. Critics say the company was established specifically for the toxic deal. The owners say that this is untrue. An official of the Ivorian Environment Ministry who spoke to Black Britain in Abidjan said the dumping took place in about 14 different sites across the city. Though the ministry with support from some international agencies have cleaned most of the affected areas, there are fears that health complications resulting from exposure may continue.

People who have been exposed to high levels of hydrogen sulphide and mercaptans in the air are very likely to continue to suffer the symptoms even after the toxics have been cleared. There is of course the possibility that deaths may occur, explains Koffi Marcel, an Abidjan-based medical doctor. The toxic scandal in Abidjan is very instructive. It is the latest example of how developing countries, particularly those in conflict, are exploited by greedy and unscrupulous foreign interests. For Achim Steiner, director of the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) the toxic dump is a particularly painful example of how illegal disposal causes human suffering.”

Unfortunately, the company at the centre of the controversy denies doing any harm to the Ivorian people. “It is not right that the company should pay for events caused by others,” Trafigura insists. “It is falsely alleged that the Probo Koala’slops made people ill when this liquid was dumped at several sites around Abidjan in August 2006. Trafigura is vigorously defending itself against these damaging and unfounded allegations, as well as the baseless claims for compensation founded upon them,”” the Dutch company notes in a release to mark the one year anniversary of the toxic dump.

“People living near these sites were suffering health problems as a result of untreated pollution and waste long before Compagnie Tommy arrived with the slops. This is an environmental tragedy, but it is not one caused by Trafigura,””the statement further notes. Despite saying it would pay no compensation, in February 2007 Trafigura gave the sum of £100 million to the government of Cote d’Ivoire, a contribution’ it maintains, does not represent any admission of liability but was made in the same spirit as Trafigura’s funding for the victims of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and the recent earthquake in Peru.”

Some observers question why the company would give a staggering £100 million to the Ivorian government to help victims of the toxic disaster when it refused to pay $300,000 to the Amsterdam Port Services for the cargo to be treated in the Netherlands.


Has Trafigura bought its way out of a massive law suit?


Black Britain’s findings indicate that Trafigura’s cash donation was made on the condition that the government drops all court charges against the company. While the Ivorian government accepted this, Leigh Day & Co, a British law firm representing about 5,000 victims of the dump, has vowed to continue its suit against Trafigura.

After receiving the £100 million from Trafigura, the government drew up a list of 95,247 beneficiaries based on information provided by state hospitals. Swiss Centre for Scientific Research (CSRS) which has been studying the impact of the slops says the list excludes more than 60 per cent of the victims. “We suggest a new approach to identify the real victims and given them the help they need,” Dongo Kouassi, the organisation’s spokesman, told journalists in Abidjan. One of those whose names are conspicuously missing from the list is Joel. Sophie said all the treatment he has so far received has been in a private clinic.

The toxic cocktail began its journey to Abidjan from Amsterdam on July 2, 2006. As Probo Koala, the vessel carrying it, unloaded in Amsterdam’s petroleum port, a west wind carried its strong stench into nearby residential neighbourhoods where residents quickly notified the police. Officials of the Amsterdam Port Services examined the black substance from one of the ship’s tanks. Though declared as ‘waste water used to clean gasoline shipping tanks, chemical analysis discovered it was something totally different. The company turned down a proposal by the port authorities to dispose of the waste properly at special facilities in Rotterdam for reasons of cost. The overall cost would have been $300,000.

It moved the toxic to Nigeria after a stopover to Estonia. As sources told Black Britain, the toxic slops would have been discharged in Nigeria but for disagreement between the cargo owners and their local collaborators over fees. Some observers describe the Abidjan toxic dump as Africa’s biggest environmental disaster in recent times. While that looks obvious, it is certainly not the first of such incidents on the continent. Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Benin have suffered similar fate in the past. Throughout the 1980s, Africa was the popular dumping ground for some European companies. In 1987 an Italian ship, collaborating with a local chief, dumped 18,000 drums of lethal substances on Koko Beach in the Niger Delta.

The substances were so potent that many who came in contact with them suffered burns, partial paralysis and blood vomiting. The Basel treaty which the European Union helped frame and which is accepted as part of legally binding EU laws, prohibits trans-border export of hazardous wastes to developing countries. But years after it came became law, some western companies continue to violate it.

http://www.blackbritain.co.uk/news/details/2558/africa/