An out-break of lead poisoning has killed 28 children in Angwan Maijero and Angwan Karo, Madaka District in Rafi Local Government Area of Niger State, following the activities of illegal miners.
This was contained in a statement by the Ministry of Mines and Steel Development, yesterday. The statement indicated that the number of casualties was more of children, 15 of them, but the Ministry of Health, Niger State reported that the death toll had increased to 28 children, while many were still sick.
“A case of lead poisoning purportedly resulting from the activities of informal miners in Angwan Maijero and Angwan Karo, Madaka District, Rafi LGA, Niger State, was reported by our Federal Mines Officer In-charge, Niger State on May 13, 2015. “The report contained a detailed investigation on the incident and measures taken to forestal further deterioration of the situation.
“A highpoint of the report was the initial report by the field officer of 15 casualties, made up of mainly children, linked to the poisoning caused by the activities of these miners. “The report also contained efforts by the Ministry in conjunction with the Federal Ministry of Health and the Niger State Ministry of Health in putting in place a technical team which visited the affected areas on a scoping mission to verify the occurrence of the out-break, its causative agents, magnitude and dimension.
“A report received on May 7 from the State Ministry of Health contained an increased number of sick children, under the age of 5, and the death of about 28 children. “Series of meetings have been held by stakeholders and are still ongoing in the process of addressing this issue, especially that comprising the Federal Ministry of Health, Ministry of Mines and Steel Development, World Health Organization, Civil Society Organization, Ministry of Water Resources and others, ” the statement said.
According to the Ministry of Mines and Steel Development the particular activity that gave rise to this out-break of lead poisoning, as in other cases in the past, has been as a result of the informal mining which involves the adoption of unsafe mining practices, giving little or no regards to personal health, that of the general public and the environment.
This was in spite of the establishment of a Special Presidential Mines Surveillance Task Force which the Secretary to the Government of the Federation inaugurated in June 2012 as part of the efforts to curtail the situation. However, the Ministry stated that it had as follow up in mid-2013 by dispatching its Ministerial Task Force to Garin Gabas in the same Rafi Local Government Area of Niger State to evacuate illegal miners from sites there.
The Ministry said the illegal miners whose population of over 1, 000 at the site of the outbreak will not be an easy task to evacuate them because it has been a informal mining site and activities during the colonial period, like Angwan Maijero and Angwan Karo.
“Other efforts made by the Ministry to tackle this problem include the setting up of a Ministerial Task Team to regularly monitor flash points of informal mining nationwide with the view to sensitizing these categories of miners on the dangers inherent in the unsafe mining and processing of minerals, and to formalize them into mining cooperatives for easier monitoring and supervision.
“It is pertinent to state at this juncture that, while not ruling out the chances of Lead poisoning as the cause of this illness in this case, it is expected that all relevant stakeholders should cooperate to see that the various intervention activities by both local and international agencies to ameliorate the current situation result in the realization of the desired effect,” it stated
