At least 300 houses have been discovered to be contaminated with lead poison in recent times in Bagega Village of Anka Local Government Area of Zamfara State.
This was disclosed by the Executive Director of Community Emergency Response Initiative (CERI), Mr Attah Benson, during a one day workshop on Mining, held at Fulbe Villa Hotel on Wednesday.
According to him, unless serious attention was given to the evacuation of the contaminated soil, more and more children would be vulnerable to the attack.
He said the effect of lead poisoning in most of the places visited by his organisation was an eye sore, saying that many women, including pregnant women and children, had fallen victims and eventually ended up with one form of deformity or the other.
Benson maintained that in spite of the commitment of some International partners like the Doctors without Borders and the Centre for Disease Control, both the federal and state governments had not done enough to complement the effort of these International agencies.
He posited that his fear was “if this non-challant attitude continues unabated, the people of these communities might revolt like what happened in the Niger-Delta.”
The director then suggested for collaboration between the federal and state governments, as well as community leaders and traditional rulers.
Source: Tribune
No comments:
Post a Comment