2009-09-17

The African victims of Swiss-based Trafigura: 'My nose bled and I was sick for months'

by Jo Adetunji


The smell in Abidjan began late at night on 19 August 2006. By morning, what had at first seemed an unpleasant odour became a stench which would leave thousands of some of the world's poorest people in a state of sickness and angry disbelief.

As a fleet of hired dumper lorries made their way around Ivory Coast's capital, sliding tonnes of viscous sludge into water courses and drains, inhabitants of the city woke to find themselves surrounded by toxic waste and fumes, causing a range of symptoms from vomiting and diarrhoea to rashes and breathing difficulties. About 100,000 people claim to have been affected by the waste and some have said they were thankful to be alive.

Guy Olou, a science teacher, said: "It smelt like spoilt eggs and also rubber burning. It sticks in your nose; it was unbearable. I started to cough and after that my nose started to bleed. For three-and-a-half to four months, I was sick. I had to go to hospital. It was terrible, very terrible."

For some, the exposure to the fumes, which contained a sulphur-based compound called mecaptan, the foulest-smelling substance known to man, was linked to horrific outcomes. "There were women who miscarried, and that was very painful," Esaie Modto, the head of a local village said. "But still, the worst was that three people, two adults and a girl died. That was very hard."

In all, 15 deaths have been blamed on the dumped waste, a suggestion backed by several reports, including a document produced yesterday by the United Nations' special rapporteur on human rights.

Such claims have been vigorously denied by Swiss-based Trafigura, the company responsible for producing the waste, which says its independent analysis of samples of the dumped slurry show it could not have produced serious injury or death.

Abidjan, with its four million inhabitants, is near lagoons. People in the city have complained of polluted water supplies, dead fish stocks and poisoned water flowing through the streets when it rained. Whole neighbourhoods were forced to pack up and leave or put up with choking and gagging from the fumes, or worse.

After a deal in 2007 with the Ivorian government, Trafigura paid £100m to "compensate" victims and help clean up the waste. But not all victims were happy.

Jules Dekagnan, a resident of Cocody Riviera, a downtown area of Abidjan, said although they had received some compensation, his wife was still suffering from health problems two years after the waste was dumped. "My wife got problems. Four months later, she got €300compensation, but she still complains of pain in the throat and other parts of the body. Doctors said about €1,000 is needed for adequate treatment. We call on kind-hearted people for help. We have no one to turn to," he told a local newspaper. Martyn Day, representing the victims, signed up 22,000 over two years, saying he would seek between $3,500 for minor damages and up to three times as much for serious cases.

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