By Polly Johnson
Impunity Watch Reporter, Africa
ABUJA, Nigeria – An outbreak of lead poisoning has resulted in the deaths of at least two hundred children in Nigeria, prompting the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) to send a five-person team of environmental emergency specialists to Abuja, the capital city.
The source of the lead poisoning is from lead-contaminated waste dumped from illegal gold mining and extracting by locals. In addition to the deaths of two hundred children, up to eighteen thousand people have been affected, according to UN sources.
In order to assess the full scale of the poisoning, the UN emergency team will spend close to two weeks in Nigeria, analyzing the soil and drinking water in an area encompassing seven villages in the Zamfara state. In the villages where contamination has been confirmed, the villagers were grinding ore by hand to find gold and unknowingly freed lead particles, which are also contained in the rocks.
“Proper sampling from the mobile laboratory is urgently needed to determine the scope and magnitude of the crisis and to assist in developing a rigorous response,” OCHA said in a statement.
Children are more vulnerable to the effects of the contamination, and most of the deaths were among children under the age of five. In one village, thirty percent of the children under five have died from the poisoning, according to Médicin Sans Frontières (MSF).
“This is an incredibly serious and worrying situation,” said Lauren Cooney of MSF, adding, “while we still don’t know the full extent of the problem, we expect that there are going to be medium- and long-term health effects for people in these villages.” The poisoning also causes deafness, blindness, brain damage and muscular problems.
OCHA has allocated two million dollars from the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF). The World Health Organization (WHO) and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) are working with local health authorities and non-governmental organizations to treat victims of the outbreak.
Local officials insist that the situation is under control, even though the response has been hindered by heavy rains, which have made it difficult to reach the isolated villages.
For more information, please see:
Guardian – Nigeria gold rush sees 200 children killed in outbreak of lead poisoning – 22 September 2010
Radio Netherlands – UN investigates lead poisining in Nigeria – 22 September 2010
BBC – UN investigates Nigeria lead poisoning deaths – 21 September 2010
United Nations – UN probes outbreak of lead poisoning in northern Nigeria – 21 September 2010
