Nearly four months after tons of toxic chemical waste were dumped in Côte d’Ivoire’s teeming economic capital of Abidjan, poisoning hundreds, residents are haunted by fears of long-term health complications.
Poisonous fumes emitted by the petroleum waste were blamed for the deaths of 10 people out of the scores sickened by the discharge — reportedly a mixture of oil residue and caustic soda — from a ship chartered by a European company.
The waste was illicitly deposited in August in more than a dozen open-air rubbish tips.
Many have recovered from symptoms, which included nausea, rashes, fainting, diarrhoea and headaches, but worry about more to come.
In Riviera Palmerai, a suburb of Cocody district near one of the dumpsites, Didier Koffi (37) choked up as he recalled the day his wife Elise, six-and-a-half months pregnant and suffering miserably from such symptoms, went into premature labour.
The baby, who would have been their third, died two days later.
”The loss was a shock,” said Koffi, who with others in the family blames the toxic waste.
”Now I fear that I may not fall pregnant again and that if I do, what are my chances of another pre-term birth or other complications?” cried a traumatised Elise. ”Justice has to prevail.”
The tension boiled over this week when two people were killed in opposition protests against President Laurent Gabgbo’s decision to reinstate three senior government officials implicated in the waste scandal.
Prime Minister Charles Konan Banny has also questioned the decision, sparking a nasty public row between the two main rulers in this impoverished West African state already torn by four years of political crisis.
In the district of Akeoudo, about 500m from one of the dumps, the Ahossi family is finally back home, after evacuating their children to escape the acrid fumes.
”We had to send them away for the sake of their health. It was unbearable,” said Rosalie Ahossi. But they started coughing again within a few days of their return, suggesting the air is not yet clean.
”Whenever it rains, it starts to smell,” she said of the nearby dump where the waste has since been cleared and sent to France for processing.
Charles Memel Kacou, director of Ivorian environmental research institute IRSPE, said the worst-feared effects in the long term are cancer-related.
”Analyses of the toxic waste show a very heavy concentration of chlorine elements.
”That’s what worries us more, because that presents a carcinogenic risk,” he said, explaining that ingestion of highly concentrated doses of chlorine can aid cell destruction and promote cancer.
Kacou said ideally at least 30 000 people living near dumpsites should have been temporarily evacuated, but only a few hundred actually moved out of their own accord.
Côte d’Ivoire authorities say it is still too early to make any health forecasts.
”We can’t seriously determine the long-term effects. It is too early,” said Anne-Marie Konan-Payne, government spokesperson for the toxic-waste crisis.
She said victims were being monitored, with medical checks carried out twice a week at government clinics.
Environmental experts said the waste also contained hydrogen sulphide and organochloride, which can cause nausea, skin rashes, fainting, diarrhoea and headaches — the sort of symptoms displayed by victims.
Life, however, carries on, as for 16-year-old Jean Yabi, who scavenges for a living and continues to ply his job at one of the dumpsites where the toxins were poured.
Armed with a steak knife in one hand and an empty rice sack in the other, Yabi digs through the slimy black garbage pit in search of something to sell.
”I am doing this for my school fees and books. I have to look after myself. My parents are in the village,” he said.
Several other children, some much younger than Yabi, also roam the dump in search of something salvageable.
A government-commissioned investigation has blamed the scandal on corruption and indifference along the administrative chain, from the top down to local authorities, in a state where crisis has weakened rule of law.
The $30-million bill for the clean-up job has further fuelled malaise, prompting both government and United Nations pleas for international help. — AFP
