In Nigeria the people of Bodo are suffering from health, food and employment problems as a result of two Shell oil spills in their town. Bodo has long been known as a “fish basket” for the immense amount of fish in its creek, but due to the oil spill many of the fish have either died or left the town’s waters. This has been damaging to both Bodo’s environment and economy, as fish were one of the main resources of the town as well as the people’s main source of food. As the cost of living increases due to the price of food imports, some of the people of Bodo have left the town to find work elsewhere. Few have succeeded as there is little work nearby. In addition many now live with irritating health issues, such as swelling, rashes, shortness of breath and headaches, some of which were caused from simply breathing in air polluted by the spill.
The first spill happened in August of 2008 as a rupture occurred in Shell’s Trans-Niger pipeline. It took over two months for the spewing oil to be blocked, but the oil that had already spilt was never cleaned up. The second spill occurred in December of 2008, caused by equipment failure, and it took ten weeks to stop that oil leak. Again the spilt oil was never cleaned up. Though Shell has so far shirked responsibility for both incidents Amnesty International has proven that the spills were in part caused by Shell’s poor maintenance of their equipment.
Please sign to tell Peter Voser, CEO of Royal Dutch Shell, to clean up the mess Shell has made in Bodo and anywhere else, and to compensate all victims for their losses. A multi-billion dollar company such as Shell cannot be allowed to walk away from such a disaster without providing proper reparations and care for their victims.
