Tweet
Source: https://bhekisisa.org/features/short...ater-ethiopia/
Something in the water: Did gas exploration poison this community?
By Tom Gardner & Juweria Ali -
February 24, 2020
Doctors in this country are saying an outbreak of mysterious deaths all have one thing in common: How close they are to this international oil company.
At first, 23-year-old Khadar Abdi Abdullahi’s eyes began turning yellow. Then the palms of his hands did the same. Soon he was bleeding from his nose, and from his mouth, and his body was swelling all over. Eventually, he collapsed with fever. He later died.
A deadly sickness is spreading through villages near a Chinese natural gas project in Ethiopia’s Somali region, according to locals and officials who spoke to The Guardian. Many of Khadar’s neighbours have suffered the same symptoms. Like him, some died.
It is not clear what is causing the sickness, and officials in the federal government in Addis Ababa firmly denied allegations both of a health and environmental crisis in the Somali region, or of any problems relating to large-scale energy projects there.
Poly-GCL, a partly state-owned Chinese company, has been prospecting for oil and gas in the Ogaden Basin, as the vicinity is known, since 2014. Calub, roughly 500km south-east of Jigjiga and near neighbouring Somalia, is due to start commercial gas production soon.
Khadar, like many from the area, is suspicious that the sickness is caused by hazardous chemical waste that has poisoned the water supply...
Something in the water: Did gas exploration poison this community?
By Tom Gardner & Juweria Ali -
February 24, 2020
Doctors in this country are saying an outbreak of mysterious deaths all have one thing in common: How close they are to this international oil company.
At first, 23-year-old Khadar Abdi Abdullahi’s eyes began turning yellow. Then the palms of his hands did the same. Soon he was bleeding from his nose, and from his mouth, and his body was swelling all over. Eventually, he collapsed with fever. He later died.
A deadly sickness is spreading through villages near a Chinese natural gas project in Ethiopia’s Somali region, according to locals and officials who spoke to The Guardian. Many of Khadar’s neighbours have suffered the same symptoms. Like him, some died.
It is not clear what is causing the sickness, and officials in the federal government in Addis Ababa firmly denied allegations both of a health and environmental crisis in the Somali region, or of any problems relating to large-scale energy projects there.
Poly-GCL, a partly state-owned Chinese company, has been prospecting for oil and gas in the Ogaden Basin, as the vicinity is known, since 2014. Calub, roughly 500km south-east of Jigjiga and near neighbouring Somalia, is due to start commercial gas production soon.
Khadar, like many from the area, is suspicious that the sickness is caused by hazardous chemical waste that has poisoned the water supply...