By Andrew Ross

NAIROBI, Kenya

 Over 800 schoolchildren are among thousands in a Kenyan village suffering from health problems due to a drought caused by an oil pipeline spill, residents have told Anadolu Agency.   

Six months back, a pipeline belonging to the state-owned Kenya Pipeline Company Ltd. ruptured, spilling oil into the Thange River that ended up contaminating key water sources in Kenya’s Thange village in Makueni County, located some 187 kilometers east of the capital Nairobi.

Since then, thousands of residents in the area, including hundreds of students at Thange Primary and Secondary schools have been complaining of head, chest and abdominal pains after prolonged use of the contaminated water.

Residents told Anadolu Agency that the oil spill had contaminated their main source of water, causing crops and animals to die.

“You cannot grow anything, look around you, everything is dry because even the soil has been contaminated by the oil, even the trees are dry,” Jane Katumbi said.

“We are thirsty, we are hungry, we are a farming community and water means life for us…the people who caused this environmental disaster should be [made] responsible and take care of us, they should compensate the people of Thange,” Katumbi added.

Another resident 36-year-old Maurice Gichuhi blamed the oil company for leaving thousands of people high and dry.

“Kenya Pipeline promised to bring us clean water which they did a few months ago, they dug us boreholes, which we have been using but most of us didn’t know that the borehole water was also contaminated,” Gichuhi said.

“Now the water smells like petrol and the local hospital has been busy receiving patients who are suffering from different diseases caused by the oil spill,” he said.

Gichuhi said that the boreholes and wells were so bad that it wasn’t even fit for animal consumption.

“The boreholes and the wells are now contaminated, every single source of water in the area is contaminated, the water is not fit for drinking, not for animals, not for plants and certainly not for humans,” he said.

Just how desperate the situation is can be witnessed at the Thange Primary School, where hundreds of students were seen queuing up with one-liter bottles in their hands, waiting to receive their portion of rain water harvested from the night before.

School teacher Mwebi Muema said that initially residents had underestimated the problem caused by the oil spill. “After the pipeline burst a few months ago many did not think that this was a big issue,” Muema said.

Since then the situation has gradually worsened. “In the past two weeks, two female teachers have been admitted to hospital showing the same symptoms as our students who are currently out of school; many complain of constant migraines, chest pains and abdominal pains,” he said.

Muema added that teachers were themselves trying to control the situation by harvesting rain water on their own during the November-December rainy season. But what will happen after the season ends? “Lives are going to be lost,” he said.

Kenya Pipeline Managing Director Flora Okoth told the Anadolu Agency that the oil spill was an accident.

“Someone might have punctured the line by accident or maybe the pressure might have caused the pipe to burst,” Okoth said.

She claimed that the company had heeded a request by the community to clean the river and supply them with clean water.

However, residents in Thange village want Kenya Pipeline company to build an oil-water separator which can treat water before use. “We are planning on working with the community back in Thange village to ensure that the issue is contained and the water sources are back to their original state,” the company's managing director said.

Kenya Pipeline was established in 1973 and started its commercial operations in 1978. The main objective of the company is to provide cost effective means of transporting petroleum products from Kenyan city of Mombasa to the hinterland.