At least two people died on Monday after inhaling toxic fumes from waste dumped three weeks ago in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, reportedly by a foreign-registered vessel, a medical source said on Tuesday.
”There were two deaths, a four-year-old girl and another aged nine years,” said an official at Abidjan’s teaching university hospital of Cocody, where more than 340 people have been treated since Thursday.
The hospital official said the girls complained of respiratory problems before they died.
An unknown number of people were also taken ill and treated at another hospital, Treichville, in the commercial capital, he said.
Those taken ill so far have complained of stomach problems, nose bleeding and respiratory illnesses.
Several daily papers reported that a highly toxic mixture was offloaded in three separate garbage-dump sites in Abidjan overnight on August 19 to 20 by a ship chartered by a Dutch-registered company.
The minister of health and environment confirmed on Monday evening that toxic waste had been dumped at several sites in Abidjan and that measures were being taken to look after those taken ill.
”The government is continuing to search so that we can identify all the sites where waste has been spilled,” Remy Allah Kouadio said on state television. — Sapa-AFP