00:07An invisible danger lurking in the soil.
00:10The water. The air.
00:14Lead.
00:15In this town in Zambia, people have been battling the same symptoms for decades.
00:21Memory problems, fatigue, headaches and stomach pain.
00:25Children are hit the hardest.
00:27Lead attacks their developing brains and can lead to lifelong damage.
00:33Many point to one source. This mine.
00:36The United Nations has called this one of the most lead-polluted places on earth.
00:42Around 200,000 people are affected.
00:45Nearly every child carries dangerous levels of lead in their blood.
00:49I can't explain to you. If I continue to explain to you, you'll see my tears coming down.
00:54We are put in dangerous positions, some of us.
00:58Today, they're living with irreversible damage. Many without treatment.
01:04So who is responsible?
01:25Jane Nalengo first noticed something was wrong when she sent her daughter to buy salt.
01:30Elizabeth came home with cooking oil instead.
01:35Soon, the problems showed up at preschool, too.
01:41She forgot what she'd learned. The teacher said she didn't understand the lessons.
01:46I thought it was better to not waste money, to take her out of school and enroll her again later.
01:53At age 6, Elizabeth was diagnosed with anemia caused by lead poisoning.
02:00Her blood contained 58 micrograms of lead per deciliter, Jane says.
02:06Lead is toxic. The World Health Organization says levels above 5 micrograms already require action to reduce exposure.
02:15I felt so bad. When her father asked about the diagnosis, I burst into tears and told him she had
02:23anemia because of the lead.
02:28Elizabeth often feels too weak to play. She has a constant cough. Recently, rashes appeared across her skin.
02:36She should take a tablet daily to reduce the lead in her body, but the medicine isn't always available.
02:42Her other medication is expensive and causes side effects.
02:47To pay for them, Jane sells homemade donuts.
02:51We return to Jane and Elizabeth later.
02:59This mine is the reason why 95% of children living nearby have elevated lead levels in their blood.
03:06According to the United Nations, they are the highest in the world.
03:11The British Rhodesia Broken Hill Company opened the mine in 1904 during the colonial era.
03:18The government later nationalized it.
03:20When the mine shut down in 1994, lead dust was left in open waste dumps.
03:27According to Human Rights Watch, that lead is affecting around 200,000 people in Caboay to this day.
03:35Since 2020, residents have been pursuing a class action lawsuit against the mining company Anglo American.
03:44The plaintiffs are seeking compensation for children and women of childbearing age,
03:49groups most vulnerable to lead exposure, and want a full clean-up of the contaminated land.
03:55The lawsuit argues Anglo American played a key role in the mine's technical, medical and safety operations between 1925 and
04:051974.
04:07Anglo American told DW it had only provided certain technical services to the mine, but at no stage owned or
04:14operated it.
04:17Zambia's Ministry of Mines wrote that the government commenced environmental remediation activities under the Zambia Mining and Environmental Remediation and
04:26Improvement Project.
04:28But Human Rights Watch says little has changed. The government is not involved in the lawsuit.
04:40Matthias Cetabankena worked in the Caboay mine for more than 30 years.
04:45He was a lab analyst, quality testing lead, zinc and other minerals.
04:51Now, you know, by repeating, repeating, you make a mistake, you are draining the results.
04:56The fumes which were coming from, the furnace, was devastating effects on our bodies.
05:05He says he often suffered from severe constipation, stomach pain, weakness and memory loss.
05:12Some of his co-workers, young men at the time, died from lead poisoning, he says.
05:18We've been unable to independently verify that claim.
05:23He shows me his access cards from before and after nationalization.
05:28After Rhodesia Broken Hill, we came to Zambia Broken Hill this May.
05:35But working conditions didn't change, Matthias says.
05:40I felt, I felt bad anyway.
05:44It was a betrayal by one, the Anglo-American people, two, my government.
05:51Both of them, what they wanted was for us to make them lead and zinc and sell to the wood
05:56market.
05:57So they wanted, just wanted the money.
06:01He takes us to where he worked.
06:03We are going straight now.
06:06Past the mining waste.
06:08These are the jet officers.
06:11This is my lab.
06:13If you are going to have a passage, no, it's closed.
06:20Because all of these presidents and their cabinets, they are quite ignorant.
06:25They have never worked in their minds, most of them.
06:27They are poisoning.
06:28It is a story to them.
06:29They are afraid of being involved.
06:31If the world knows, the world will come and attack the officials.
06:35Why didn't you tell your people that this was so, so, so?
06:41The dangers were known early.
06:44As far back as the 1940s, an investigation by colonial authorities found a high risk of lead poisoning at the
06:53Kabwe mine.
06:55But Matthias says workers there grasped the scale of the threat only years later.
07:01I can't explain you.
07:03If I continue explaining, you will see my tears coming down.
07:08They were going around, taking us to the hospital to extract some blood so that they taste as if they
07:15have got too much lead in their body.
07:18And after they find that you are in the stage, which is very bad for you to continue working in
07:26that department, you are removed.
07:30But after two or three months, they'd be sent back again.
07:36A 2022 medical study shows average blood lead levels near the mine reach up to 60 micrograms per deciliter.
07:47Matthias says his son, now an adult, suffered permanent developmental damage.
07:53At the time, no help was given.
07:57They never left us with any medical help.
08:02Because the Anglo-American left, they didn't give us anything.
08:09At 83, Matthias is not among the plaintiffs in the lawsuit.
08:13The case focuses on children and women of childbearing age, particularly vulnerable groups.
08:20But how can we, I'm the person who is inside the plant suffering.
08:26Inhering all that is thick smoke.
08:29Now how can I be out, exempted from being compensated?
08:37Mining still continues here today.
08:41Simon Chimanga has worked as an artisanal miner since 1988.
08:46From the start, he had symptoms.
08:50A loss of memory, stomach pain.
08:53You eat, you stay maybe one month minus going to the toilet until you go to the clinic.
08:59For a while he received treatment.
09:01Then that stopped.
09:03The symptoms keep coming back.
09:07Last year, I went to lead testing.
09:11They found me with 8% lead poisoning in my body.
09:17He mines lead and zinc to sell to Chinese buyers.
09:22In a good week, he earns about 300 kwacha, roughly 13 euros.
09:27Barely enough to support his five children.
09:29And it's dangerous work.
09:32Sometimes it collapses.
09:34You die or there may be any injuries.
09:38We risk our lives.
09:42He says he would rather find safer work, like farming.
09:46But he lacks the money and the job prospects.
09:54Over 30 years since the mine closed.
09:57And lead is still everywhere.
09:58In the air, soil and water.
10:01No one can escape it.
10:04Jane works constantly to keep her home free of dust.
10:09She cleans the kitchen every day.
10:13I sprinkle water because I'm afraid the lead dust could contaminate the children's food.
10:23The vegetables and fruit we grow in the garden are also contaminated with lead.
10:28Anyone who grows fruit here cannot eat it without worrying.
10:38The same when we fetch water from the well.
10:41How much lead does that contain?
10:48Jane uses this water only for washing and watering plants.
10:52For drinking water, she's been advised to add chlorine.
10:56Though that doesn't protect against lead.
11:02Jane has developed many routines to protect her family.
11:05Still, she says, her daughter's condition is getting worse by the day.
11:11I wish the government would financially support us to move away from all this lead.
11:17So my children can finally live in safety.
11:26She worries too for her two grandchildren.
11:29Both were exposed to lead before birth.
11:32She fears their entire lives may already be shaped by it.
11:45Today is a good day.
11:47Elizabeth feels strong enough to play with her friends.
11:51And though Jane knows the water she gives Elizabeth may be harming her,
11:55she has no alternative.
11:59Sometimes she wakes up weak.
12:01And I feel bad when I think that white people brought this whole lead problem to Zambia with this mine.
12:09It hurts me deeply.
12:16She hopes the lawsuit against the mining company succeeds
12:19and gives her and her family the chance to leave.
12:23To finally move away from a home that is making them sick.
12:32To finally move away from the next Prop $50, it is.
12:32Double Years it has been a case where she walks away from,
12:32believes that the murder can poisons me and保持 is pretty decent.
12:33And the water can not participate,
12:33but it is not a point where she speaks to patients with causes Yangtira.
12:33It is the most important to happen when there's taken an atmosphere in the background.
12:33So the describing of herなる brain has been being justified and健 bekute wjosibi.
12:34Let's convey their community.
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