Post #188

🇳🇬Lead, Gold and Children [ Cost Of Negligence ] If you had a child, would you let them play with sand? 🌟 In the first half of 2010 in rural Zamfara, northern Nigeria, more than 400 children under five died from something no one could see: lead dust from backyard gold mining. The tragedy started in remote villages where people had recently discovered gold-bearing rock. It was a real stroke of luck that promised prosperity for the poor local communities - what they didn't know was that there was lead along with the gold. People worked in families and used simple tools: hammers, mortars, small mills. They would often bring ore home, broke it into small pieces in their courtyards and then ground it to fine powder in the same compounds where children slept and food was cooked. ➡️ The hidden catastrophe started unfolding, when children began to die in unusual numbers. During one survey in two Zamfara villages, 118 of 463 children under five living there died within twelve months. Many had seizures before death. When teams from Médecins Sans Frontières, Nigerian and American experts arrived, they found that some children had critical levels of lead in their blood - about 700 micrograms per decilitre. The international safety threshold is 10 micrograms per decilitre. Symptoms of acute lead poisoning iclude persistent abdominal pain, repeated vomiting, problems with walking or balance, seizures. Studies estimate that more than 2,000 children survived the acute phase with lasting disabilities that affect memory, learning and movement. Though subsequent remediation projects removed thousands of cubic metres of contaminated soil, academic studies describe the crisis as “continued” and “unabated” in some mining areas and estimate that at least 47 villages and more than 30,000 residents have lived with contamination. #CostOfNegligence Devils Below