About 10 communities in Nigeria have been polluted by oil spills following attacks on pipelines by militants, a news report said today.
A pipeline stretching from Escravos to Warri in the Niger Delta has been leaking for more than a month, Reuters reported.
“Crude has spilled into all their communities with their people suffocating from the gas content contained in the crude oil,” a lawyer representing residents was cited as saying in the report.
“If urgent steps are not taken to arrest the situation, their communities may be engulfed by a massive fire outbreak.”
The lawyer alleged that state-oil firm NNPC had done nothing to fix the leak, and asked the country’s oil minister to intervene.
The company was not immediately available for comment when contacted by Reuters.
The country fell into recession last month due to a slide in oil production.