Ijaw Professionals Seek Urgent Help Over Bille Gas Pollution

The Ijaw Professionals Association (IPA) has called for urgent government intervention over what it described as severe and ongoing gas pollution threatening lives and livelihoods in Bille community, Rivers.

 

The call was made on Wednesday in a statement by the Chairman of the association's Board of Trustees (BoT), retired Maj.-Gen. Paul Toun.

 

According to Toun, gas is bubbling across the community's land, rivers and water wells.

 

 

Toun said both underground and surface water in the community had been contaminated. Dug-out wells, he said, were now producing blackish water, while residents had no pipe-borne water to fall back on.

 

He added that the crisis had also polluted the air and made parts of Bille unsafe for human habitation.

 

The BoT chairman expressed concern over the death of a community member, Miss Joy Amos, who allegedly sustained severe burns in a gas explosion and died after 19 days of treatment.

 

He said respiratory and other medical problems were also being reported in the community, describing the situation as a humanitarian emergency.

 

 

Toun said delegations and appeals had so far failed to produce the desired results.

 

He therefore called on international organisations to intervene, naming the United Nations, the World Health Organisation, the UN Environment Programme, the International Criminal Court, the African Commission on Human Rights, Amnesty International, Friends of the Earth International and Greenpeace.

 

Such intervention, he said, should focus on humanitarian relief, environmental justice and legal accountability for the people of Bille and other affected Ijaw communities in the Niger Delta.