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400 Nigerian children used in gold mining poisoned
At least 400 children under the age of five have been killed in the past six months by lead poisoning from illegal gold mining in the Nigerian state of Zamfara, humanitarian groups have said.
By Aislinn Laing in Pretoria
Published: 5:20PM BST 05 Oct 2010
Two young boys stand in front of a pond infected with lead poison at Dareta village, Anka district in Zamfara State Photo: AFP
The deaths have been attributed to villagers dumping the by-product of crushed gold ore rocks. Even small quantises of the lead contained in it can prove fatal to young children, while also causing deafness, blindness and brain damage in others. According to Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), the international medical charity, more deaths may have been covered up the communities to avoid a crackdown on the practice by the authorities.
Illicit gold mining is more lucrative than the alternative of agriculture in the impoverished northwestern state. According to local newspaper reports, the Nigerian government has repeatedly asked the state authorities to crack down on the practice but there have been claims that several village and regional heads are profiting from it. "Based on record of fatalities from lead poisoning, more than 400 children have died in the last six months," said El-Shafii Muhammad Ahmad, project director for MSF.
"But we in MSF believe the figure is much more than that. Many lead-related deaths are never reported and in many cases, these communities attribute them to other factors or deny them altogether." The UN has sent an emergency team to help deal with the problem. The American Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which conducted a preliminary study into the deaths, said that the scale of the problem was "unprecedented in CDC's work with lead poisoning worldwide".
