Health of Mother Earth Foundation<\/a>, a Nigerian think tank, says continuous burning of crude oil can release hazardous pollutants such as benzene, sulphur dioxide, particulate matter and PAHs, which are associated with cancer and with respiratory and cardiovascular diseases.<\/p>\n\u201cIf you consider what the people in Awoye have been continuously exposed to for six years, it may be comparable to what communities face where there is constant gas flaring and oil spills,\u201d he says. \u201cYou can be sure there will be elevated levels of blood disorders, cancers, skin diseases, breathing difficulties and, of course, deepening poverty, because their livelihoods are being destroyed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Families in Awoye rely largely on local medicine vendors and underfunded clinics. Healthcare access is limited in the Ilaje riverbank communities, mostly reachable by boat, with virtually no specialist respiratory care.<\/p>\n
Dead fish from a polluted river in Ogoniland, Rivers state. Water contamination is having a dramatic effect on fishing livelihoods in the region. Photograph: Afolabi Sotunde\/Reuters<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, livelihoods tied to the sea are collapsing. Awoye\u2019s fishers once returned from the Atlantic with baskets full of croaker, catfish, tilapia, mackerel, and barracuda.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you cast your net, sometimes the fish smell of crude oil,\u201d says Ajimisogbe. \u201cUnless you buy fuel worth 60,000 to 70,000 naira [\u00a333 to \u00a339], twice as much as before, and travel much farther out to sea, you\u2019d hardly get a decent catch.\u201d<\/p>\n
In some parts, oil contamination forms slick layers over the water\u2019s surface, blocking oxygen exchange and destroying vital breeding grounds for marine life. Ajimisogbe says dead fish sometimes wash up near polluted creeks after periods of heavy discharge.<\/p>\n
For women who sell fish in local markets, dwindling catches mean lower incomes and rising debts.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt first we thought the fire would stop,\u201d says Christianah Abiye, a fishmonger. \u201cNow it feels like we have been abandoned with it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Awoye\u2019s traditional leader, Happiness Abiye, expresses growing frustration over repeated pleas for help being ignored amid ongoing suffering.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur people are dying slowly, with increased sickness and hunger linked to this pollution,\u201d he says. \u201cFishermen no longer catch like before, children are coughing, and women spend their little money treating illnesses that were rare before this fire.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe feel abandoned,\u201d he says. \u201cIt is as if the lives of coastal people do not matter to those in power.\u201d<\/p>\n
Environmental campaigners say the disaster exposes deeper, systemic failures in Nigeria\u2019s environmental governance.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Niger Delta environment has become a completely sacrificed zone. We talk a lot about oil spills and gas flaring, but we hardly talk about produced water,\u201d says Bassey.<\/p>\n
\u201cCommunities are carrying the health burden, while regulators remain largely absent.\u201d<\/p>\n
Experts want Nigeria to develop a system for monitoring environmental and health risks \u2013 in the delta there is no comprehensive study on oil pollution\u2019s long-term health effects.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou breathe it every day,\u201d says Abiye.<\/p>\n
No one from the Owena Oil and Gas, or the Ondo State government responded to the Guardian\u2019s requests for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Perched on a narrow hospital cot across from her son, Bodunwa Orugbemi can hear the distant Atlantic Ocean…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":527835,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[242,85,46,141],"class_list":["post-527834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=527834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527834\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/527835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=527834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=527834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=527834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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