The Ministry of Mines and Steel Development yesterday confirmed the death on 28 children from lead poisoning in Niger State.
A statement from the ministry said a case of lead poisoning purportedly resulting from the activities of informal (illegal) miners in Angwan Maijero and Angwan Karo, Madaka District, Rafi Local Government Area (LGA) of Niger State was reported by its Federal Mines Officer in charge of the state, last Wednesday.

According to Deputy Director, Press, Ministry of Mines and Steel Development, Ambrose Momoh, the ministry had dispatched its Ministerial Task Force to Garin Gabas in the same LGA to evacuate illegal miners from sites in mid-2013.

He, however, made it clear that stopping illegal mining, which was identified as the cause of lead poisoning, was difficult because the practice was entrenched. “It should be noted that the issue of informal mining activities started during the colonial period, and that the task of clearing over one thousand persons from sites like Angwan Maijero and Angwan Karo would not be an easy one.”

Momoh listed other efforts made by the ministry to tackle this problem as the setting up of a Ministerial Task Team to regularly monitor flash points of informal mining nationwide with the view to sensitising these categories of miners on the dangers inherent in the unsafe mining and processing of minerals, and to formalise 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 realisation of the desired effect,” he said.

He added: “As a way of addressing the lead poisoning menace, especially after the Zamfara case, there is in place a collaborative effort with the World Bank, which began two years ago. This effort is aimed at developing a process for streamlining Artisanal and Small Scale mining activities in the country. It is thus expected that the project which the World Bank has appointed the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland to handle will help a great deal in addressing the question of artisanal and small scale mining activities in Nigeria.

“The particular activity that gave rise to this outbreak 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.”

Among the strategies recommended and which are being adopted now under Prevention, Treatment/Chelation and Remediation considerations, Momoh said, are sensitisation/awareness programmes, backfilling the open mines, identifying affected children and probably relocating them to a treatment Centre in Anka, Zamfara and the emergence of a group of experts to put up a Response and Preparedness Plan.

http://.com/discussion/4209/ministry-confirms-28-children-dead-from-lead-poisoning-in-niger/p1

Waat?
God comfort der families

how come only Children died?