Herders in Unity State, South Sudan, still scoop water from small murky ponds even after gaining an intuition of danger it possesses. The contaminated water with oil and chemicals around the oilfields led to serious health issues like coughing and panting. Chilhok Puot, chief of the herders, indicates that though they know the water can cause harm, they have no other options as risk a dire thirst.
According to scientists, flooding has wreaked havoc in Unity State and can only be explained as a direct consequence of climate change. Flooding large areas of land has only continued to worsen cases of pollution emanating from oil facilities. Formerly an oil engineer, David Bojo Leju noted that flooding washed pollutants, including hydrocarbons, into local water bodies.
Having spent years with the Greater Pioneer Operating Company (GPOC), Leju was well aware of the repeated oil spills and mishandling that caused this pollution to take place. “Produced water” is one of these: being treated improperly, it is released into the lakes, producing further damage.
With these floods, coupled with pollution, results are devastating. As of 2022, two-thirds of State of Unity was reportedly submerged and is estimated that 40% of the region is still flooded. The constant flooding has further made the already bad state of water quality in the region deteriorate, with oil chemicals reported to seep into the groundwater, threatening both the health of humans as well as animals.
Residents are complaining that their cattle are being deformed, presenting calves without heads or limbs. Other than the tragic loss of over 100,000 cattle during the past two years, which agricultural officials traced to both the flooding and the contamination from oil production, residents have not lost any livestock.
Other than livestock loss, the residents have suffered from a lack of clean water for drinking due to the pollution. Nyeda, a mother living inside a flood-infested refugee camp, drinks, cooks, and washes her babies in contaminated borehole water but has to buy clean drinking water.
Dr. Samuel Puot, a local doctor, attributes pregnant women consuming polluted water to their babies’ congenital abnormalities he is seeing at the Bentiu hospital. Although the numbers are scary, no systematic record is kept and no data confirm the level of this problem.
Dr. Nicole Deziel, an environmental health specialist, reported that a relation of congenital abnormalities with environmental pollution exists, however, without systematic data collection, it is hard to establish a direct link.
Studies conducted by the Nongovernmental Organisation, Sign of Hope in 2014 and 2017 reveal increased concentration levels of heavy metals such as lead and barium along rivers near the oil fields in Unity State, indicating that production of oil is helping to exacerbate alarming contamination of water.
The Government of South Sudan entirely depends on oil revenues and has agreed to the problem but just recently ordered an environmental audit of the oil sector, with no results publicly available yet. Locally elected politicians, for instance, have been criticizing oil pollution for years: “The government cannot be accountable; they just want oil revenues, and they do not care about the environment and our health,” believes Mary Ayen Majok.
This year, Leju has continued his crusade against the dangers his country is facing. He made a final move by running to Sweden, seeking asylum as he was intimidated and detained while trying to expose the oil pollution in the states. Serious allegations against the GPOC, to which he used to report, and the South Sudanese government didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Climate change, coupled with the poor management of oil extraction has left South Sudan facing a humanitarian crisis regarding forced displacement and pollution while adding uncertainty over its future to recover from compounded environmental challenges. Considering that temperatures will continue rising, experts believe that South Sudan is going to face worse-weathering action compared to other regions around the world.
Despite the hardships, however, most dwellers of the area seem to still believe in the possibility of resuming their normal life when they can again keep cattle and live off the land. Yet, though the road to recovery is very long, climate change and pollution will continue to menace their livelihood.
