Arandis: The uranium capital of the world

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Arandis: The uranium capital of the world

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Former workers at the vast mine in the Namibian desert allege they are suffering from radiation-related illnesses.

Victoria Schneider Last updated: 20 Jan 2014 19:49

Windhoek, Namibia - Somewhere in the middle of the vast Namib desert is a settlement by the name of Arandis. It has been here since 1975, ever since the Anglo-Australian mining firm Rio Tinto came to set up its Rössing uranium mine.

It needed a place to house its black workforce.

Almost forty years later, the glamour of the olden days has passed, when uranium prices were high and competition low. Arandis is still the home of the workers, but has lost the financial support of the company. It looks like it is doomed to decay. The town lies like an island in the middle of endless rocks, sand and dust. The streets are dull and lifeless and the houses only distinguishable by the colours in which they've been painted.

There's a saying here: "If you leave Arandis, you will die." One of those who repeat the phrase is Hoseas Gaomab, who worked in the mine's laboratory for 23 years. He knows many men who have died. But he doesn't know why.

Gaomab, aged 73, is a fragile old man. He first came to Arandis in 1975, a year before the Rössing mine started operations. He was there when it became the largest open pit in the world. When it almost single handedly turned Namibia into one of the leading uranium producing countries - by supplying Europe, the US and Japan.

The question is, at what expense this has happened. Many men who worked here in the mine's early days claim to suffer from severe illnesses including cancers, hypertension and anaemia. Gaomab is sick, too. He suffers from a disease that has made his legs and hands numb for the much of the past 20 years.

I had been feeling weak, but the mine doctors always said it's okay... The doctors only ever tested us for flu. if I had known, I would have asked them to test me for radiation.

"I had been feeling weak, but the mine doctors always said it's okay," he told Al Jazeera. He can barely walk, or get up from the armchair in which he sits.

Discovering the risks, too late

For a long time it simply didn't occur to Gaomab that his illness could be work-related. Then, in 1993, a medical student named Reinhard Zaire arrived, interviewing miners and taking blood samples. "He asked us how long we worked for Rössing and when we got sick. Then he called us together to tell us we were irradiated."

This was the first time he heard about the existence of radiation in the uranium mine. "The doctors only ever tested us for flu," he said. "If I had known, I would have asked them to test me for radiation."

Aside from Zaire's claims, there is no proof that Gaomab has been fatally irradiated. And chances are slim that he will ever find out. There are no records available from the company of what happens to workers once they leave Rössing. After their retirement, the men return to their homes in rural Namibia, where they rarely have access to proper healthcare facilities.

"To date, there have been no confirmed occupational illness related deaths," said Rio Tinto spokesperson Penda Kiiyala.

However, there is great scepticism among people here in Arandis towards the company and their medical staff.

"The mine is a big company, they can tell everyone what to do. They tell you what's wrong with you and you have to believe them," said Gaomab. Although scientists have previously linked diseases such as those reported in Arandis to the exposure of radiation, nobody - other than Reinhard Zaire - has investigated them in the context of the Rössing uranium mine.

Zaire studied the effects of long-term exposure to low levels of radiation believed to be found in the Rössing mine. He concluded that there was an increased risk for uranium miners to develop malignant diseases such as cancer. Shortly after the report was published, Zaire was dismissed by the Namibian Ministry of Health and Social Services, his research permission was revoked, and he was accused of practising as a medical doctor illegally.

Rio Tinto - facing a lawsuit in the UK at the time, in which it was accused of damaging an employee's health - slammed Zaire's report.

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