Research by Anna Bruedele and the Roland Holder University of St. Gallen, Switzerland has found that 16,000 children have died from oil spills related ailments in the Niger Delta region.
The 2017 research said in 2012 alone the 16,000 children died within one month of birth within a 10-kilometre radius from oil spill sites.
A non-governmental organisation (NGO), Stakeholders Alliance for Corporate Accountability (SACA) disclosed the statistics in Yenagoa while faulting governments and oil companies over health hazards associated with oil exploration and exploitation in the Niger Delta.
SACA executive director, Kingsley Ozegbe, said the NGO is committed to creating awareness through periodic sensitisation programmes as more infants stand a greater risk of deformity and death in production areas due to the increasing number of oil spills.
Ozegbe also disclosed that SACA investigations revealed that between 13 and 19 pregnant women out of 1,000 experience miscarriages due to the effect of oil spills while children who survive neonatal deaths have impaired growth.
He lamented, “But three years after the research publication, nobody is talking about the research findings in the region and oil spillages are becoming more endemic in the region and Bayelsa in particular.”
Meanwhile, the Bayelsa State government through the Ministries of Education, Health and Environment, has agreed to partner with SACA to safeguard children from the effect of oil spills at the inauguration of ‘The child-driven safeguarding project at school level’ project.
The Catholic Education Board and the National Association of Proprietors of Private Schools (NAPPS) also agreed to partner with the NGO in the project to safeguard the lives of both born and unborn children across the state from oil pollutions.
The state government commended SACA for taking the awareness and advocacy campaign for a hydrocarbon pollution-free society to schools in the state, saying that the awareness created would immensely address the problems of environmental hazards associated with the exploration and exploitation of oil across the state.
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