Several hundreds of Ivorians have been taken ill, some seriously, after inhaling toxic fumes from waste dumped two weeks ago, reportedly by a foreign-registered vessel, sources said Monday.

The teaching university hospital of Cocody, situated in one of the districts bordering the Abidjan lagoon, has treated more than 340 people between last Thursday and Monday…

Several daily papers reported that a highly toxic mixture was offloaded in three separate locations in Abidjan overnight August 19th to 20th by a ship chartered by a Dutch-registered company.

“The government is continuing to search so that we can identify all the sites where waste has been spilled,” [Minister of Health] Remy Allah Kouadio said on state television.

I’d suggest they gather up as much of that crap as possible — drop it in the dooryard of the relevent CEO’s — and give them the bill for transport.

Update: Two of those in hospital have now died.



  1. Jim Scarborough says:

    Oh, and watch out for the carcinogen benzene in your soft drinks caused by a chemical reaction while it sits on the shelf…

  2. ECA says:

    Send it…
    COD..
    Crap on delivery..

  3. Smartalix says:

    And some wonder why the developing world hates and distrusts the West…

  4. Mike Cannali says:

    The toxic PC waste is

    http://www.epa.gov/osp/regions/emerpoll/swift.ppt

    a much bigger problem = 1.2 billion pounds of heavy metal toxic waste

  5. pierre says:

    this is a shame this is how we souffer in Ivory Coast from the bad handling of what we will call the dumping of toxic waste around the world who is really guilty?
    Africa or the Modern world ?
    In this country where there is already unrest on the political state we have to go throught that again ?

  6. gquaglia says:

    Toxic waste, AIDS, or the local warlord. Does it really matter. People on the African Continent are doomed anyway.


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