Smoke, soot and toxic fumes: Nigerian families living in the shadow of burning oil six years after the explosion | Global development

Plying in a small hospital bed across from her son, Bodunwa Orugbemi can hear the Atlantic Ocean in the distance and smell the stench of crude oil in the air from the coast. His 21-year-old son has been lying in this hospital in the Niger Delta for days, swallowing small spoonfuls of food and unable to speak.

70-year-old Orugbemi says Ijadopin started coughing one evening in May, in their small wooden house in Awoye on Nigeria’s Atlantic coast. After a few days his cough became stronger, then he developed skin rashes, followed by shortness of breath.

He says: “He started shaking and coughing uncontrollably.

He believes the disease is linked to pollution in the Awoye area, where an offshore oil rig known as Ororo-1 has been burning for years, spewing smoke, soil and toxic fumes into nearby communities.

Her husband, who is a fisherman, no longer returns home with the fish that once supported the family.

He says: “The beach is different. Sometimes you stay out all day and it doesn’t bring anything.”

Across the coastal areas of Ilaje in Ondo state, people are sharing similar stories of chronic cough, respiratory problems, skin problems and deterioration of livelihoods which they say is related to the April 2020 oil well explosion incident.

Philip Jakpor, executive director of the NGO Renevlyn Development Initiative, says that people’s experiences show a common pattern in the oil-rich region: the collapse of natural disasters that continue for years without monitoring the health of the affected people.

“What happened in Awoye is not different,” said Jakpor. “In the Niger Delta, the plight of oil-polluted communities has reached a point where people are forced to live with polluted air and water.

The Ororo-1 oil well was initially drilled by Chevron Corporation, which later closed and abandoned the field. Nigeria’s then director of petroleum, the Department of Petroleum Resources, then awarded licenses to two indigenous companies, Owena Oil and Gas and Guarantee Petroleum, which continued to operate until the blowout ignited the well.

In six years, communities say pollution is a part of everyday life.

“It was seven o’clock at night when the explosion happened. The whole community was shaken. At first, we thought it was thundering at sea, but when we rushed out of our houses, we saw thick smoke rising from the mining site on the beach. Since that day, nothing has been the same,” said Temilorun Patrick Ajimisogbe, a fisherman in Awoye. After that the fishermen stayed out of the water for days, fearing for their lives as the layer of oil and the smell of crude oil spread along the shore.

Years later, he says people here still complain of coughs, itchy skin and dizziness that have a major impact on fishing.

“Sometimes, we wake up in the morning only to see oil everywhere, said Ajimisogbe. “Before we know it, the water will take it out again.”

Black soot lives inside water and food containers that are kept uncovered, residents say, yet no government agency has come forward to conduct a comprehensive public health survey.

Dr. Bieye Briggs, an environmental health expert, says the main concern is the effect on people living in Nigeria’s oil producing areas of long-term exposure to alcohol.

“Although pollution may indeed cause a problem, our main concern should not be limited to the presence of pollutants,” he said. “The biggest concern is the lack of an adequate bio-monitoring system to determine what people might be putting into their bodies.”

A recent study by the Kebetkache Women Development and Resource Center on women’s health in Otuabagi, Bayelsa state, where Nigeria’s first commercial oil wells were drilled in the 1950s, revealed high levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in women’s blood and soil and water contamination.

Dr. Nnimmo Bassey of the Health of Mother Earth Foundation, a Nigerian unit, says that the burning of crude oil regularly can release air pollutants such as benzene, sulfur dioxide, particulate matter and PAHs, which are associated with cancer and respiratory and heart disease.

“If you consider what the people of Awoye have been exposed to for six years, it can be compared to what communities face when there is always gas and oil spills,” he said. “You can be sure that there will be high rates of blood disorders, cancer, skin diseases, breathing difficulties and, yes, poverty will increase, because their health is disappearing.”

Families in Awoye rely heavily on local medicine vendors and unfunded clinics. Access to health care is limited in communities on the banks of the Ilaje River, most of which are accessible by boat, with almost no specialized respiratory care.

Meanwhile, livelihoods tied to the sea are collapsing. Awoye fishermen used to return from the Atlantic with baskets full of croaker, catfish, tilapia, mackerel and barracuda.

“When you cast your net, sometimes the fish inhale the crude oil,” Ajimisogbe said. “Unless you buy fuel worth 60,000 to 70,000 naira [£33 to £39]twice as much as before, and you go far into the sea, you will not find good fish.”

In some areas, oil pollution forms thin layers on the surface of the water, blocking oxygen exchange and destroying important breeding grounds for marine life. Ajimisogbe says dead fish sometimes wash up along polluted streams after high tides.

For women who sell fish in local markets, the reduction in catches means less income and increasing debt.

“At first we thought the fire would stop,” said Christiah Abiye, a fish seller. “Now it feels like we’ve been abandoned.”

The traditional leader of Awoye, Happiness Abiye, expresses growing frustration at repeated calls for help being ignored amid ongoing suffering.

“Our people are dying slowly, because of the increasing sickness and hunger related to this pollution,” he said. “Fishermen are not fishing like before, children are coughing, women are spending their little money treating diseases that were rare before this fire.

He says: “We feel abandoned. “It’s as if the lives of the people on the coast don’t care about those in charge.”

Environmental campaigners say the disaster reveals a deep, systemic failure in environmental management in Nigeria.

“The Niger Delta area has become a place of complete sacrifice. We talk a lot about oil spills and gas flaring, but we never talk about water being produced,” said Bassey.

“Communities bear the brunt of the health burden, while regulators remain largely absent.”

Experts want Nigeria to develop a program to monitor environmental and health risks – in the delta region there is no comprehensive study on the long-term health effects of oil pollution.

“He breathes it every day,” said Abiye.

Neither Owena Oil and Gas, nor the Ondo State government responded to The Guardian’s requests for comment.