Oil communities appeal for urgent relief aid

Eleven communities in southeastern Nigeria have called on humanitarian agencies, the federal and state governments to send urgent relief aid to surviving victims of an oil pipeline fire between Egborode and Oviri Court, in Delta State, 18 days ago. The chairman of the Mereje Oil Spillage, Peter Ebireri, who is also the spokesman for the communities, told reporters on Wednesday in the oil town of Warri that they needed portable water, drugs, medical teams, and health centres. He said 312 people died from the inferno - 212 of them residents of the communities - after streams overflowed their banks with kerosene and petrol, saturating the atmosphere with vapour. He described the majority of victims as farmers, fishermen, palm nut collectors and palm wine tappers who - despite their absence from the point of explosion - were nevertheless “engulfed by the fire”, ‘The Guardian’ of Lagos reported. Also destroyed were plantations of rubber, raffia, palm trees, plantain, coconut, and kola nut cassava farms. He said the soil had been burnt and would be unproductive for the next 100 years. The communities put the damage at five billion naira (US $48 million).