Everyone in the Nigerian community of Kegbara (K) Dere is affected by pollution caused by oil spills from decades ago. None more so than its youngest and most vulnerable members.
Letor Baatee is a 36-year-old community midwife, who has helped deliver more than a hundred babies there in her time. Over time, she has noticed how many are born with serious health conditions she says.
“There are different complications. Some will come with birth defects… In most cases, they die after a little while,” she explains.
Letor believes that the many oil spills have poisoned the fields, forest, creeks, and even the groundwater that the community relies upon. She says that she has seen how pregnant women cannot avoid being impacted by this pollution, as they drink water from wells that are contaminated. Damage caused by the spills has also meant that the community’s farmers, fishermen, and women, like those across the Niger Delta, where oil production and pollution have gone hand in hand since the late 1950s, are less productive than they used to be. “Pollution affects pregnant women in different ways. Firstly, there is the impact on their health of what they eat and the fact that the water is contaminated. Then there is the lack of food. There’s no fish and fewer vegetables, so they don’t eat healthily,” she says.
While many factors could contribute to these health issues, Letor’s concerns have been borne out by a growing body of recent research. These have been published after many decades in which the Nigerian government and oil companies operating in the region have done insufficient work to monitor this vital issue.
Documentation of the environmental impact of oil spills made for Amnesty Nigeria.
Letor Baatee – K-DERE
aged 36 Telephone 09168972599.
Sisters called Nude and Gift with children, babies. Informed consent given. KDere
midwife. There’s not much work now. when there’s not much work I do farm work. there’s not much work because people aren’t interested in having so many children because of the economic situation. From 2005 until now I helped 100 and something deliveries. There are different complications – some will come with birth defects maybe some will come with water coming out of their mouths and noses. some have deformed heads and some will come with mental difficulties. in most cases they die after a little while. Pollution affects pregnant women in different ways. first is the impact on their health, on what they eating and the fact that the water is contaminated there’s no fish and less vegetables. so they don’t eat healthily. the second issue is that when they’re pregnant mothers often then suffer from a health condition you can see them coughing or developing ailments sometimes they complain of breathing and there’s nasal congestion and cough. babies are also often after they’re born, babies also often cough and have blocked noses when there’s a problem the go to is a private clinic or a government hospital or maternity clinic
For example, in 2021, scientists at the University of Port Harcourt published a comparison of hundreds of birth records from K Dere and a similar community that is not affected by oil pollution. They found that K Dere has “a higher risk of preterm birth, a slower rate of newborn growth, and a higher rate of newborn morbidity than the non-oil-polluted area at 6 weeks after birth.”
This backed up the findings of an earlier study, conducted by the University of St Gallen in Switzerland in 2019. This found that nearby oil spills that occur within 10km of a mother’s place of residence in the Niger Delta and take place before conception increase neonatal mortality by 38.3 deaths per 1,000 live births, which corresponds to an increase of around 100%.
Another study, which was published in 2023 by a commission set up by the government of Bayelsa state, concluded that “toxins from hydrocarbon pollution are present at often dangerous levels in the soil, water, and air… They have been absorbed into the human food chain. And they have ultimately found their way into the bloodstreams and tissue of people living in affected communities.”
This study followed a ground-breaking report by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) in 2011, which documented for the first time the contamination from oil of agricultural land and fisheries, the poisoning of drinking water, and the exposure of hundreds of thousands of people in the Niger Delta to serious health risks. It found that people in its study area, Ogoniland, had “been living with chronic pollution all their lives.”
Research by Amnesty International and partner organisations has documented the different human rights that have been affected, including the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, the right to an adequate standard of living, including the right to food, the right to water, the right to health, and the right to an effective remedy for people whose human rights have been impaired.
Unfortunately, as the devastating impact of oil pollution on human rights has become better studied and more widely known over the years, the multinational oil companies that operate the wells and pipelines have been selling up.
In December 2024, the Nigerian government approved the sale of the onshore business of the largest operator, Shell, to a consortium of mainly Nigerian companies. The Anglo-Dutch giant will now focus on deep-sea operations instead.
Amnesty International has joined Nigerian and international civil society organisations in opposing this sale over fears that this will make it much less likely that the environment will ever be fully remediated. Failure to do so would be a tragedy for places like K Dere. This was one of the communities that UNEP researchers studied. What they found was not only how widespread the oil spills were but also how woefully inadequate Shell’s efforts had been to clean up the pollution.
Shell insists that its oil spill remediation techniques are of a high standard, but in 2011 UNEP found that there was still contamination at the site of a massive fire and spill that had occurred forty years earlier, in 1970.[1] In 2015, Shell claimed to have fully remediated the site both before UNEP reported on its findings and afterward. Amnesty International and our colleagues at the Port Harcourt-based Centre for the Environment, Human Rights and Development (CEHRD) visited this site, known as Bomu Well 11, and found that it was still visibly contaminated in 2015, despite what the oil company had claimed.[2]
In October 2024, Amnesty International researchers observed that a new clean-up operation was taking place, being run by a government agency funded by Shell and other oil companies (the Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project – HYPREP). Shockingly, more than fifty years after the spill occurred, and after Shell claimed in 2015 to have cleaned the site, excavations revealed a thick layer of oil below the soil surface.[3] Rainwater could be seen carrying this into a nearby creek. This is further clear evidence of how the environment continues to face the consequences from decades prior.
In 2015, Amnesty and our partner NGO, The Center for Environment, Human Rights and Development (CEHRD), also observed how a large area in the centre of the community, around a Shell facility called the Bomu Manifold, was also still heavily contaminated after Shell had claimed that this area too had been remediated. Residents explained that after our report came out, Shell sent staff to clean up again, but in October 2024, oil pollution there too remained clearly visible to researchers.[4]
“Our soil used to be very rich, and every seed we dropped in the ground produced very well. This was the source of our livelihoods and foodstuffs, which we fed our families with. It was very nutritious,” remembered Namon Grace Nwindee, a retired teacher and farmer. “But then the pollution problems came.”
K Dere is one of the many communities across the Niger Delta, home to about 30 million people, that has tried to sue Shell or another oil company for compensation for damage caused by the pollution and lack of effective clean-up. They filed a suit in 2012 but then dropped it in 2020 after becoming frustrated by the lengthy and expensive court process, a community representative explained.
Such challenges of bringing cases in the courts against powerful corporate actors are not unusual. They have been cited by the representatives of two other communities – Ogale and Bille – as reasons for trying another legal route. Rather than filing a case against Shell’s Nigeria-registered subsidiary, they have decided to go after its parent company in London, where the company is headquartered.
Ogale, a community of 40,000, which, like K Dere, sits within the Ogoniland region of the Niger Delta, was also studied by UNEP. It found that people had been drinking water contaminated with benzene, a known carcinogen, at over 900 times above the level deemed safe by the World Health Organisation. UNEP’s report concluded this was “certain to lead to long-term health consequences.”
The situation does not seem to have sufficiently improved. In October 2024, Amnesty researchers observed that water coming from a community tap, which was connected to a borehole, smelled strongly of petroleum and that its white tiles were stained dark brown. Considering benzene is a chemical compound that is found in petroleum, this indicates that the groundwater remains contaminated.
His Royal Highness Emere Godwin Bebe Okpabi, the paramount ruler and hereditary king of the Ogale community, explained that he had “no other option than going to court. I feel sorry for my son and for all the Ogoni people of his generation and those coming after him, as they do not know how good it used to be to live in Ogoniland. But I will make sure that Shell is held responsible for the devastation that they caused us.”
The case was filed in 2015, and the Preliminary Issues Trial of Nigerian Law for Shell vs. Ogale and Bille communities began at the UK High Court on 13 February 2025 and finished on 7 March 2025. The legal delays and the resources that Shell has sunk into this case over the years have deeply frustrated King Okpabi. “Why don’t you use that same money to assist us? As you’re dragging us in court, the situation is getting worse!”
As the world faces the reality of the climate crisis driven in large part by the combustion of fossil fuels, it is worth bearing in mind the damage that decades of oil and gas production have already done to frontline communities, like those in the Niger Delta. Amnesty International calls for Shell to provide a full remediation plan, with details of all completed and ongoing clean ups across its area of operation. Shell should also allow independent testing to be conducted to assess whether its purported clean-up of previous oil spills has been done properly.
Shell was contacted in advance of the publication of this article but at the time of publication, it did not respond with any comments.