An oil spill in Unity State in September 2019 | Credit | Courtesy

An environmentalist has called upon community leaders in the oil-producing states to bring attention to the office of the president oil pollution-related concerns.

Nhial Tit Mamer’s remarks come after an official in Unity State told Eye Radio that communities there were living in fear after an oil pipeline in Rubkona oil field raptured.

The crude oil leakages are said to have lasted two days before the communities realized and reported the matter to GNPOC, the company operating there.

The leakages, according to the leaders, cover over four kilometer-square area before it was later stopped, but it has already contaminated the water.

Nhial, who is an environmental expert at Sudd Institute think-tank said government is not paying attention to envirnment damage done by oil companies.

“In China they don’t do this, In Malaysia, they don’t do it, and this is because government penalizes any company. But because we aren’t serious here in South Sudan that is why they are doing such things,” Nhial said.

“No company even in the western would ever do things recklessly.  I am calling on the community leaders to speak out their problems by even meeting the president in order to communicate their problems directly.”

There has been also reports of outbreak of diseases related to environmental pollution, with stillbirths and deformed newborns as symptoms of the conditions in the oil-producing areas.

Last year also, governors in Upper Nile region called for the review of oil contracts that were signed with oil companies before the independence of South Sudan.

They argued that some of the agreements signed under the Sudanese government had not factored in the environment, and the welfare of the ordinary South Sudanese living around the oil fields.