MOSCOW (Sputnik) — According to a report by Amnesty International, produced jointly with the Center for Environment, Human Rights and Development (CEHRD), Shell had failed to meet the 2011 UN requirements for cleaning up oil spills in its work in the Ogoniland region of southern Nigeria.
"Claims by Shell that it has cleaned up heavily polluted areas of the Niger delta are blatantly false. The only plausible explanations for why the four sites could still be polluted, four years after Unep [United Nations Environment Programme] found high levels of contamination at each of them, are that no remediation was carried out, or remediation was carried out but was ineffective, or that other spills have occurred since then," the report said.
Earlier this year, the company agreed to an $84-million settlement with residents of the Bodo community in Ogoniland for two large-scale oil spills in 2008 and 2009.
The release of this report coincides with the 20th anniversary of the execution of eight community leaders and environmental and human rights activist Ken Saro-Wiwa by the Nigerian government. Saro-Wiwa was protesting against the ecological disaster caused by sweeping oil production in his homeland, Ogoniland.
