Time
for Donor Governments to Provide Decontamination
Support for On-Going Cote D’Ivoire Emergency
Toxic Waste Clean Up and Rehabilitation Plan Will
Give Focus for International Financial Assistance
Abidjan/Nairobi, 14 December
2006 - An international mission to support Cote
D’Ivoire finalize a strategic plan for dealing
with toxic waste dumped in the country was launched
today it was announced by the United Nations Environment
Programme (UNEP).
The move is in direct response
to a decision taken by governments at an international
hazardous waste meeting earlier this month and
follows the dumping in August of toxic materials
in and around Abidjan—the Cote D’Ivoire capital—
with serious and on-going public health and environmental
impacts.
The government of Cote D’Ivoire
has been struggling to cope with the multi-million
dollar financial costs of collecting and dispatching
the toxic wastes to France for decontamination.
UNEP is concerned that, irrespective of who will
or who will not be held liable for this incident,
people of one of the world’s poorest countries--
who have already paid dearly for this irresponsible
act of hazardous waste dumping--are now also being
forced to pay the bill for removal and clean up
operations.
The government says it is having
to make tough, and what UNEP considers unacceptable
choices for a country where many people live on
less than a dollar a day including whether to
pay the clean-up bill or the wages of medical
staff at local hospitals.
The strategic plan, which will
assess measures needed to clean up and rehabilitate
contaminated sites along with the costs, will
support an international fund raising effort to
assist Cote D’Ivoire with its immediate needs.
Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary
General and UNEP Executive Director, said: “The
recent conference of the Basel Convention on the
Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous
Wastes and their Disposal called upon countries
and other stakeholders to offer Cote D’Ivoire
technical and financial assistance at this difficult
time”.
“UNEP’s mission, that starts
today, will aim to have the finalized waste plan
in place in the shortest possible time so as to
address the current concerns. It will, in cooperation
with other UN entities and the international community,
also provide a basis for the long term rehabilitation
also urgently needed,” he added.
“In addition, I am establishing
a Trust Fund to provide a fast track mechanism
for governments to immediately assist Cote D’Ivoire
financially—assistance that is needed urgently
and is needed now,” said Mr Steiner.
“For millions if not billions
of people around the world, we are fast approaching
a special date in the annual calendar-- a date
of hope, of fellowship, of celebration, of giving
and of reflection. I sincerely hope that compassion
will guide governments in echoing to these sentiments.
In doing so they can bring comfort to the people
of Cote D’Ivoire along with the clear and unequivocal
message that they are not alone and that the international
community is standing by them with concrete support,”
said Mr Steiner.
The mission to assist Cote D’Ivoire
draw up the strategy will be led by Sekou Toure,
UNEP’s Regional Director for Africa and Pasi Rinne
of UNEP’s Disaster Management Branch.
The UNEP mission will work in
close cooperation with the UN country team in
Cote D’Ivoire. UNEP will seek to coordinate activities
under the strategy with all relevant partners
in the UN system with a view to ensuring an efficient
and harmonized response.
Background to the Toxic Waste
Dumping
The full details of the events
leading up to the toxic waste dumping in Cote
D’Ivoire and those responsible remain subject
to national and international legal investigations.
However, it understood that
a ship, sailing from Europe, docked in Cote D’Ivoire
and unloaded materials onto trucks which proceeded
to take these to landfill sites.
Local people, concerned over
the smells emanating from the wastes, blocked
the dumping and the truck drivers— apparently
startled —allegedly released the wastes at sites
around the city and in nearby villages.
A report, prepared by the Ivorian
authorities, indicates that 16 sites at seven
locations were affected including a bread factory,
the main civic landfill, roadsides, two abattoirs,
lagoons and wastewater systems.
Groundwater supplies to the
capital were contaminated along with other drinking
water systems. Fisheries near Abidjan were closed
as were schools.
Routine waste disposal services
have been disrupted because of toxic pollution
at the main civic tip leading to rubbish pilling
up for months and there has been contamination
of the food chain especially meat and fish, according
to the Ivorian authorities.
More than 10 people have died,
over 100,000 people have sought medical assistance
with numbers peaking at 3,600 on 18 September
and health centers have been overwhelmed, it is
claimed.
More than half of the locations
remain to be dealt with and the contamination
shipped abroad for decontamination and safe disposal,
the Ivorian authorities told the Nairobi conference
in late November. There is also concern that more
sites may have been affected following the discovery
of two new hectares of polluted land.
“The Ivorian authorities have
worked as best they can to deal with the situation
including establishing mobile health centers,
boosting the number of health workers offering
free consultations and medicines and identifying
and tackling polluted sites. A commission of enquiry
was also established and other domestic actions
undertaken. International financial and technical
assistance is however the missing response,” said
Mr Steiner.
UNEP believes it is vital that
proper, modern, waste reception facilities and
customs and other staff, trained in areas like
hazardous waste and illegal shipments, should
also be in place in vulnerable developing countries
like Cote D’Ivoire.
A workshop, under UNEP’s
Green Customs initiative, is now scheduled to
take place in West Africa in early 2007.
Nick Nuttall, UNEP Spokesperson
