The Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People, MOSOP, has decried the high rate of infant mortality in Ogoniland, Rivers State, noting that four of 10 children born in Ogoniland die within three months.
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Speaking in Bori, headquarters of Khana Local Government Area of Rivers State, yesterday, Publicity Secretary of MOSOP, Fegalo Nsuke, said: “Shell’s war against the Ogoni people have started showing an unprecedented impact that threatens to wipe off the entire Ogoni nation.”
He called for immediate action to remediate the polluted land in order to save the people from untimely death.
His words: “We are very scared by this trend, particularly because a recent study by Professor Roland Hodler and Research Assistant, Anna Breuderle, from the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland, found that of the 16,000 infants killed within the first month of their lives in the Niger Delta in 2012, 70 percent, about 11,000, would have survived their first year in the absence of oil spills.
“Shell had been primarily responsible for the death of these children, but not without the alliance of the Nigerian government. “They have failed to cleanup Ogoniland; they have also failed to provide clean water and basic health facilities for the people and we have reasons to say they have deliberately done these.”
Nsuke said the situation is an emergency and underscores the need for immediate action to improve the quality of drinking water available for the people and for the remediation of the polluted environment.
( vanguard)
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