Environmental reports obtained by AP detail accounts of “alarming” birth defects, miscarriages and other health problems among residents living in SouthSudan's oil regions. Residents blame the government and the oil companies for the rampant pollution.
., of neglecting the issue and trying to silence those who have tried to expose the problem.
“People are dying of unknown diseases,” said Simon Ngor, a pastor with a church in Melut, a small village in the oil-rich area of Upper Nile state. “The oil company says they’re working on it but I don’t think they actually are.” The AP interviewed more than two dozen people in Paloch and the surrounding areas, and residents reported alarming health problems that echoed those found in the buried reports: babies with birth defects, miscarriages and people dying of unexplained illnesses.
Six had lost babies in the last 10 years. And all of them knew someone who had given birth to a child with deformities, had struggled to conceive or had miscarriages. “Under no circumstances should these empty containers be used by people for any reason, in particular for holding drinking water,” said Rick Steiner, an oil pollution adviser in Alaska who consults for governments, aid groups and the United Nations on oil spills.
A group of 10 South Sudanese researchers, including an infectious disease expert, an epidemiologist, several public health specialists and an environmentalist, toured the oil fields in Upper Nile and Unity states. They found that local residents were complaining of increased miscarriages, stillbirths and incidents of “malformed newborn babies” that didn’t survive.
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