Ivory Coast To UK's Trafigura: Pay For Poisoning The Coastline

British lawyers have mounted the largest class action yet lodged in the UK courts for up to 30,000 Africans allegedly poisoned by toxic waste dumped by an oil tanker.

The action is being brought against Trafigura, a London-based multinational, over the dumping in 2006 of 400 tonnes of toxic waste in the Ivory Coast. The waste, containing high levels of caustic soda, a sulphur compound and hydrogen sulphide, gave off toxic fumes and allegedly led to 100,000 people going to clinics suffering from vomiting, diarrhoea and breathing difficulties after exposure to the waste. Ten people died.

The company was accused of dumping the poisonous black sludge, or slops, that arose from removing impurities including sulphur from the raw oil, in rubbish tips, drains, abattoirs and lagoons in Abidjan, the commercial capital of the Ivory Coast, in August 2006.

The Ivory Coast Government was forced to resign and the United Nations paid £30 million to help with the medical costs of setting up free clinics and cleaning up.

Now a team of 15 British lawyers has lodged claims for 17,000 people and has just returned from the Ivory Coast with a fresh tranche of 3,000 claims. At a recent hearing in the High Court in London the lawyers predicted that the total would reach 30,000 by trial. The trial is expected to take place between April and July next year.

-TimesOnline (UK)

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