Govt rejects HRW report on arsenic
The government yesterday rejected the Human Rights Watch (HRW) report on arsenic contamination in Bangladesh, terming it “flawed and false”.
Referring to the number of deaths cited in the report released on Wednesday, LGRD and Cooperatives Minister Khandker Mosharraf Hossain claimed that not a single person had died of arsenic poisoning recently.
“We are strongly protesting this report,” he said at a press conference at the local government and rural development ministry.
Citing a 2012 study, the HRW in its report said an estimated 43,000 people had die each year from arsenic-related illness in Bangladesh.
The minister asked journalists whether they could cite examples of people dying after drinking arsenic contaminated water.
“I myself am an inhabitant of the worst disaster-prone area, Faridpur. In the last seven years, four people died in my neighbourhood, but none of them died from arsenic [poisoning],” he said.
Asked about arsenic-affected people, he said no one is affected by arsenic contamination now. “There are some old people who were affected by arsenic [poisoning] earlier. We are not getting new arsenic-affected people.”
It is false that 40,000-45,000 people die from arsenic poisoning every year, said the minister.
“Some NGO might do it. We are protesting it.”
Citing different initiatives taken since the disease first emerged in late 1997, Mosharraf said, “We are providing people, mostly the old in rural areas, with treatment for arsenic contamination. But we do not find any evidence of new case of arsenic [poisoning]. So the claim of 40,000-45,000 people's death from arsenic [poisoning] is false. We can't accept it.”
Referring to surveys conducted by the government in 1997 and 2000, the minister said after examining 51 lakh tube wells in 270 upazilas of all districts, it was found that 29 percent of tube wells are arsenic contaminated and there were some 38,000 arsenic-affected patients in the country.
Out of 1,56,000 water sources tested between 2006 and 2012 to find the levels of arsenic, 6,700 sources were found to have more than tolerable level of arsenic, he added.
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