Eight months after she lost her daughter to oil spill, Annkio Kie (not real name) is still struggling to fight off pain and sorrow. Mary was sick for three years, after what started as mere rashes turned out to be a severe skin disease.
“We couldn’t send her to the hospital because there was no money,” Kie says, staring at the floor in her compound.
“Since the spill has destroyed everything we had, we were unable to go to the general hospital. We were getting the traditional medicine even though they never stopped referring us to the hospital.”
And so, in the morning of March 4 2018, the daughter passed on. Nothing can be as painful as the loss of a loved one to circumstances that can be controlled but which you have no power over. Between the time she died and now, hundreds of people in Goi community, Gokona local government area of Rivers state, have been buried as well, most of whom suffered from strange sicknesses suspected…
