“I don’t want to die young,” Mr Ogina said of the impact of the barite mines on him and his family. “I plead with the government to do something urgently.”
PREMIUM TIMES
After working for about seven hours on his cassava farm during the dry season in February 2018, Nathaniel Ogina approached the stream that runs through his farm in Iyamitet, a community in Nigeria’s Cross River State. As he crouched at the streambank, the change in the water’s colour startled him.
“I noticed the strange colour of the water. It was orange instead of the clean water we were used to,” the 30-year-old recounted.
But thirst overcame his hesitation. He drank the water despite its odd appearance, only to be disappointed by an unusual taste and the sudden onset of stomach pain. “The taste was different, and I started feeling a kind of stomach pain I had never experienced before,” he recalled, his gaze cast downward.
Alarmed, Mr Ogina rushed to his local chief’s house to report his experience. Although aware of abandoned barite mining sites near his farm, he was shocked to learn from the chief – who had attended a seminar on the effects of mining – that the stream could have been contaminated by leachates from waste indiscriminately dumped by barite miners.
Later that day, Mr Ogina took some medication, which relieved his symptoms. However, days later, his two brothers experienced similar pains, compelling them to take medication as well. These incidents prompted Mr Ogina to stop his mother and six siblings from drinking water from the contaminated stream.
But his worry lingered.
“That experience in 2018 upset me because the stream wasn’t like that before,” Mr Ogina lamented. “I am not happy that barite mining activities have affected our water.”
Mr Ogina’s experience is not unique to him and his family.
Two hours’ drive from Iyamitet, in the Ibogo community, Esther Onete experienced a similar ordeal in March 2024. On her first visit to her mother’s farm with her two children, her eldest son fetched water from a nearby stream and gave it to his younger brother to drink. Shortly afterwards, Ms Onete noticed strange symptoms in her one-year-old.
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