Environmental scandal at uranium exploration project in Bahi, Tanzania

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Revision as of 13:32, 29 April 2013 by Falk (talk | contribs) (updated)
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For more than five years, a number of foreign companies has intensively explored potential uranium reservoirs in different parts of Tanzania. Recently, a mining licence has been issued for the Mkuju River Project, partly owned by ARMZ, Russia. For this project the borders of the UNESCO protected world heritage Selous Park has been accepted by the WHC. Also concerned are the wetlands in a hollow without outlet in Bahi in Central Tanzania, some 50 km west of the capital Dodoma. For the inhabitants of this otherwise semiarid region it is of big important for growing rice, fishing, grazing, manual salt production in small amount, etc.

From the very beginning, the exploration was forced by high governmental levels, particularly by the Ministry of Mining. The inhabitants or their rights were not respected. Even the simplest security measures as filling up the exploration dikes were not brought into action. As far as we know, there was also no monitoring of possible releases of radioactivity for instance by the TAEC Tanzania Atomic Energy Commission or of other dangerous materials like heavy metals.

The residents of the village expressed their objection of the uranium mining plans in several gatherings and with the collection of signatures, because they fear the destruction of their natural resources.

In the end of 2012, several companies - Mantra Resources, International Gold Mining, Tanzoz, and the specialized US drilling company Layne - against the citizens' volition executed an intensive drilling programme on the territory of the villages Bahi Makulu and Illindi. In Bahi Makulu, particularly an area called Mashamba Mapya ("new field") was concerned. It had been prepared for growing rice only five years before.

Since about 2008, the CESOPE NGO informed the population in the concerned locations about the possible impacts of uranium mining, and about their possibilities to defend their citizens' rights in this case granted by the land rights legislation.

Acute health problems occuring

Since the rains starting in December 2012, an accumulated number of health problems is appearing with people having contact with the water from the concerned area.

  • skin: rash, fissured skin, ("drying-out"), blain
  • eyes: stinging pain particularly if exposed to light or wind, unceasingly tearing, redness
  • gastrointestinal tract: at humans who drank the water bloody squitters occur

The problems generally occur after contact with water in the concerned areas. After contact a certain time passes before the symptoms appear. The longer a person was exposed to the contaminated water, the more massive the problems occur. People who had worked for several days on the concerned fields are seriously sick. Usually, the symptoms disappear again if new contact to the water would be avoided. Particularly at the eyes irreparable damages have to be expected, particularly after intensive exposition.

CESOPE has interviewed more than 200 concerned people. The actual number of persons concerned is significantly higher. Pictures and videos as well as a documentation produced by the Tanzanian Channel 10 confirm the symptoms. Julia Neumann with uranium-network.org confirmed the people's suffering in an on-site visit.

Particularly agricultural workers employed in the area of the "Mashamba Mapya" suffer the described symptoms. But wind also pushes water into other areas of the wetlands - from there, particularly from the villages of Kikuyu and Gaiti (Manyoni District) reports on similar phenomenons have been brought. Nobody can remember something like this ever happened in Bahi before.