Norwegian multinational Norsk Hydro was accused by Dutch justice this Friday (24) of letting its aluminum refinery in Pará, the largest in the world, pollute a river for years, causing serious health problems for the local population.
Nine victims and the Associação dos Caboclos, Indígenas e Quilombolas da Amazônia (Cainquiama), which represents 11,000 families in the city of Barcarena, are suing Norsk, seven subsidiaries and shareholders – six in the Netherlands – for alleged leaks from the Alunorte refinery for at least 20 years.
“Many people have suffered horrific effects on their health as a result… This was at least two decades ago,” one of the plaintiffs’ lawyers, Marc Krestin, told AFP.
“Some developed various forms of cancer. Others developed skin diseases. Babies were born with their intestines outside their bodies,” he said.
The company denies any fault in the case, which seeks to establish liability. Possible indemnities would be analyzed separately, in another process.
According to the plaintiffs’ lawyers, in 2018, heavy rains led to the overflow of reservoirs and contamination of the city’s water supply system.
“Large amounts of toxic mud turned the river red,” they said in a statement ahead of the trial at the Rotterdam District Court.
The contamination would have led “many of the indigenous tribes to suffer from poor physical health, in addition to removing their source of income and access to food and clean water”, they added.
Brazilian authorities also accused the company of contaminating drinking water in Barcarena, located 110 km from the capital Belém, with bauxite residues and imposed heavy fines.
The alleged victims who testified on Friday include Maria do Socorro da Silva, president of Cainquiama. According to reports, she would have received death threats for her activism.
Norsk Hydro’s vice president of communications, Halvor Molland, stated that the facts concerning the case were already being discussed by Brazilian courts.
“We believe that these issues are most pertinently dealt with locally, in Brazil, and we ask that the Dutch court suspend the case until there is a final decision in the Brazilian cases,” he said in an email sent to AFP.
The complaints “remain unfounded and there is no evidence of contamination in the communities caused by Alunorte related to the rains of February 2018”, Molland claimed.
Deliberations in the Netherlands can take several months.
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