Toxic leak "not a public health concern"

A toxic leak in the port of Djibouti is confined to the port area itself and has not become a public health concern, an environmental expert said on Wednesday.

According to the Djibouti news agency (ADI), Professor Albert Nantel, a toxicologist and consultant for the World Health Organisation (WHO), told a news conference that measures had already been taken to evaluate the risk of contamination in the port.

Fears of a widespread environmental and humanitarian crisis rose after 10 containers holding a highly toxic substance, known as chromated copper arsenate, began leaking in January. According to a recent report by the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), which has sent an assessment team to the area, five sites have been contaminated. A number of people are undergoing treatment in Djibouti hospitals and some domestic animals which entered the sites have died.

Nantel said some 30 port employees who had been in contact with the chemical product or the contaminated sites, had undergone tests, and follow-up procedures were now in place. An emergency programme was underway to clean up and isolate the sites.

Djibouti's acting Environment Minister Saleban Omar Oudine said he appreciated the international response to the crisis. He told the news conference his government had taken the necessary steps "to protect the environment and the population".

"The issue is not why these chemicals arrived in Djibouti, but to ensure that such an event never occurs again," he added. He called for strict surveillance of the worldwide movement of dangerous products and for prior confirmation that the required norms for packaging and conservation were in place.

[See also earlier IRIN story at: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=24452]