Waste Dumping off Somali Coast May Have Links to Mafia, Somali
Warlords
http://enews.voanews.com/t?ctl=C3EBB8:2F72C9DProblems came to light in early January after massive Asian tsunami
brought broken hazardous waste containers to shore, waste which may
have been dumped off coast of Somalia for more than a decade
Somali men walk past unidentified garbage washed on to the beach in
Hafun in north eastern SomaliaLate last month, a U.N. report
highlighted some serious health problems plaguing people in northern
Somalia in the Horn of Africa. The problems came to light in
early January after a massive tsunami from Asia brought to shore
broken hazardous waste containers, which may have been dumped off the
coast of Somalia for more than a decade. Allegations of waste
dumping by European companies have existed for years.
The tsunami that hit the coast of Somalia in late December did more
than level villages and kill hundreds of people. It also churned
up a secret that some must have hoped would remain forever buried at
sea.
Nick Nuttall of the U.N. Environment Program in Nairobi explains that
as the wave receded, residents living along Somalia's northern coast
noticed dozens of rusting steel drums, barrels, and other containers
deposited on their beaches.
Smashed open by the force of the wave, Mr. Nuttal says the containers
exposed a frightening activity that has been going on for more than a
decade.
"Somalia has been used as a dumping ground for hazardous waste
starting about the early 1990s and continuing through the civil war
there,” he noted. “European companies found it to be very cheap
to get rid of waste there, costing as little as $2.50 a ton where
disposal costs in Europe are something like $250 a ton. And the
waste is many different kinds. There is uranium radioactive
waste. There is leads. There is heavy metals like cadmium
and mercury. There is industrial waste and there is hospital
wastes, chemical wastes. You name it," said Mr. Nuttal.
Since the containers came ashore, hundreds of local people have fallen
ill, suffering from mouth and abdominal bleeding, skin infections, and
other ailments.
A senior scientist with Greenpeace Research Laboratories in Great
Britain, David Santillo, says while it would be difficult to prove
that exposure to industrial waste is the sole cause of such health
problems, he believes there is a link.
"It could well be that some of those health effects are a result of
exposure to radioactive material and in that case, for some people,
regrettably, the prognosis could be very devastating,” he
explained. “There could be people who simply would not recover."
Warnings about a potential health and environmental disaster from
illegal waste dumping began circulating as early as 1992, a year after
a coalition of Somali warlords overthrew the government of dictator
Mohammed Siad Barre and turned the country into a violent, lawless
state.
At the time, a UNEP official in Nairobi, Mustafa Kamal Tolba, told
reporters that he was convinced that European firms were dumping
hazardous waste in Somalia because there was no government to stop
such activities. But Mr. Tolba declined to name the companies.
A Brussels-based Somali environmental activist, Amina Mohammed, tells
VOA that an Italian television journalist named Ilaria Alpi soon took
up the investigation. But in 1994, Ms. Alpi and her cameraman
were killed while traveling in Somalia.
Ms. Mohammed says she believes the journalist was assassinated.
"She was killed because there were many things that she discovered,”
he explained. “There are Italian companies. There is the
Mafia. There are Somali warlords. There is a whole range
of people, dealers, and brokers involved in this task."
Ms. Mohammed says the journalist had been investigating allegations
that Mafia-run companies in Italy were regularly transporting
industrial waste to Somalia for dumping. The organized crime
group is estimated to control about 30 percent of Italy's waste
disposal companies, including those that deal with toxic waste.
Ms. Mohammed says Ms. Alpi discovered that much of the waste was being
carried from Italy to its former colony aboard fishing vessels
belonging to a company called the Somali High Sea Fishing
Company.
"This company was owned by the Somali government and it is now in the
hands of a manager who is also presently a member of parliament,” she
added. “His name is Munye Said Omar. He is presently in
Yemen and all the boats are in Yemen harbor."
Ms. Mohammed says the television journalist had evidence proving that
the warlord was using some of the money generated from waste dumping
to purchase arms to fuel the country's civil war.
In 1998, one of Italy's largest weekly magazines, Famiglia Cristiana,
alleged that although most of the waste dumping took place after the
start of the civil war in 1991, the activity actually began as early
as 1989 under the former regime.
It is not known whether illegal dumping is still taking place in
Somalia. The Bahrain-based, multi-national maritime force
patrolling the waters off the Horn of Africa as part of a U.S.-led
counter-terrorism effort, tells VOA that it has not observed any such
activity in recent years.
Even so, Greenpeace scientist David Santillo says the tsunami disaster
has shown that the dumping problem in Somalia deserves urgent, global
attention.
"There is quite a lot that can be done, with the expertise, with the
equipment that may not be available immediately to Somalia but would
be available if there was a real international effort to survey the
areas where this dumping is supposed to have happened and to try, as
far as possible, to recover those materials, so that they are not a
time bomb for the future," he noted.
Environmentalists say another urgent need is for a central government
in Somalia, which can take responsibility for safeguarding its long
coastline, but that may be years away.
In October, a transitional government for Somalia was cobbled together
in neighboring Kenya. But its leaders have not been able to move
to the Somali capital, Mogadishu, because of security threats.