No fewer than 14 persons have died of water borne diseases in Okoroutip community in Ibeno local government area of Akwa Ibom state.
The water borne diseases is said to have break out in the village in December last year.
Blueprint investigation revealed that apart from persistent flood that threatens the community, there is no source of drinking water in the area.
Speaking to our correspondent weekend , the youth president of the oil rich community, Mr Henry Ekpe Nkanin, said the people depend on ponds and creeks water as their daily sources of drinking water .
“As a riverine area where there is no bush to dispose waste, the community dispose faeces and other organic substances in the water and still drink from it.”
He said the unhygienic disposal of waste and lack of potable drinking water has thrown the entire community into epidemic that has so far claimed 15 lives from December last year.
” From December last year, we have buried 14 people that died from water borne sicknesses and more would be buried as nothing is done to help us”
Nkanin said the only borehole drilled by ExxonMobil many years ago has collapsed and the well contaminated while the entire plumbing system has decayed.
When our correspondent visited the borehole provided to the community by ExxonMobil many years ago, it was a tale of neglect and outright abandonment as it was overgrown with weeds and other mangrove shrubs.
