‘Ray of light’ Shell liable for Nigerian oil spills in legal first
Chief Patricia Ogbonnaya walks through her Nigerian farm on a July afternoon, a light drizzle coating her umbrella while she examines what should have been ripe fruit trees and thriving fish ponds. She points to dark stains on tree trunks that stop abruptly at the same level across her land. “That’s how high the oil reached during the flood,” she said, touching the bark, her hand coming away with sticky residue.
Last autumn, a Shell pipeline burst and saturated the surrounding area with crude oil. A heavy downpour swept the oil over Ekpeye land, drenching farms and swampland
Ogbonnaya points to a massive hole in the ground, a fish pond drained of water, where a rainbow sheen at the clay bottom reflects the palm trees above, showing how deep the oil sank.
