Nigeria's Ogoniland region could take 30 years to fully recover from oil spills, a UN report says. The long-awaited UN study says environment restoration could prove to be the world's "most wide-ranging and long-term oil clean-up" ever taken.
The report found that pollution seriously threatened public health in at least 10 communities in the region. Oil giant Shell has accepted liability for two spills which devastated communities in 2008 and 2009.
One community said it would seek hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation. Shell said it would settle the case under Nigerian law. The UN report, which follows a two-year investigation, has already proved controversial in part because it was funded by Shell.
Nigeria is one of the world's major oil producers. Earlier, the UN Environment Programme (Unep) presented its findings to Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan.
"This is not an assessment designed to blame any particular stakeholder operating in Ogoniland," Unep spokesman Nick Nuttall told the BBC's Network Africa programme earlier on Thursday.
"What we are indeed really seriously hoping is that this might actually close the chapter in what has often been a sad, tense and sometimes violent story, going back several decades.