In Namibia, a Canadian copper company leaves a legacy of toxic waste – by Geoffrey York and Samuel Schlaefli (Globe and Mail – January 15, 2025)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Sickness has been common for years in Tsumeb, where Dundee Precious Metals was the biggest employer for more than a decade. Tests have now found the soil is contaminated with arsenic and other heavy metals

In the citrus orchards above the Namibian town, workers often fall sick. They say they feel a burning sensation in their eyes and throats and a metallic taste in their mouths as the wind blows across from the copper smelter a few kilometres away.

“When the gas is coming from that side, we get headaches and dizziness, and sometimes you feel like you want to throw up,” says Festus Gawab, who has worked for three years on a citrus farm near Tsumeb, watering the orange and lemon trees.

His two children, aged 4 and 6, have visible sores on their bodies. His co-worker, Johnny Ngongo, has a range of similar symptoms. “It feels like fire in my lungs,” Mr. Ngongo says. Sickness has been common for years among the people of Tsumeb, an industrial town of about 35,000 people in the southern African country of Namibia, where Toronto-based Dundee Precious Metals Inc. ran the copper smelter – the town’s biggest employer – for more than a decade, until August, 2024.

For the rest of this article: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-dundee-copper-mine-namibia-arsenic-toxic-waste/