Nigeria's
Deadly Delta
- Illegal oil refineries
- Precarious oil amnesty
- 'Blood oil' dripping from Nigeria
- The day Nigeria hit oil
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| The Niger Delta has few major roads and many villages lack electricity and clean water |
Oil giant
Shell is due to appear in court in the Netherlands to face charges of polluting
Nigerian villages.
The case is
being brought by four Nigerian farmers and the Dutch branch of campaigners
Friends of the Earth.
It is the
first time a Dutch multinational is being put on trial in a civil court at home
in connection with damage caused abroad.
The
Anglo-Dutch firm insists that it has been unable to clean up the spills due to
insecurity in the region.
It also
says that more than half of the leaks are caused by theft and sabotage.
The case is
linked to spills in the Ogoniland region of Nigeria.
The farmers
say that oil spills from the oil firm's pipelines have destroyed their
livelihoods by damaging crops and fish-farms.
One of the
plaintiffs, Friday Alfred Akpan from the village of Ikot Ada Udo, told the BBC
the oil leaks in his village had badly damaged his 47 fish ponds.
"Fish
died as a result of the oil spill, making it difficult for me to live and put
my children through school."
He told the
BBC's Newsday programme he wanted compensation for the loss, and for Shell to
clean up the spill.
If the
farmers' case is successful it could set a legal precedent, paving the way for
thousands of other compensation claims from those affected by oil spills, says
the BBC's Anna Holligan in The Hague.
Last year,
a report by the United Nations Environment Programme said that over half a
century of oil operation in the region, by firms including Shell, had caused
deeper damage to the Ogoniland area of the Niger Delta than earlier estimated.
In August,
the company accepted responsibility for two specific spills in the region in
2008 and 2009, saying it would settle the case under Nigerian law.
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The
Nigerian farmers and their legal team argue that Shell
could have prevented the
spills
|
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