Relief and hope for residents near the Metssa factory in Vindoulou in the suburbs of Pointe-Noire in Congo. The Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development and the Congo Basin, Arlette Soudan-Nonault, asks the Congolese subsidiary of the Dubai-based group, Metssa, to completely suspend its activities in Vindoulou due to “the proven major risk” of their impact on “human health and the environment”.
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The minister requested this suspension in a letter sent to the company on Monday June 17.
Since 2013, local residents have seen black smoke escaping from the factory and are worried about their health.
In March 2023, 18 people were tested with blood lead levels 14 times higher than the WHO alert threshold. Abdoulaye Diarra, researcher at the NGO Amnesty – based in the Dakar regional office – worked for two years on several industrial companies including Metssa Congo. His report In the shadow of industries in the Republic of Congo was published in early June. He is questioned by Amélie Tuletfrom the Africa editorial team.
“ We carried out two research missions, in June and December 2022, in the departments of Pointe-Noire and Kouilou. We worked on three companies (two oil and Metssa Congo which recycles lead batteries) and we interviewed several dozen people, then over the whole of 2023, we went through legal documents, carried out analyses, etc..”
“The facts reported are serious », concludes the researcher.
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