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26 April 2021 (openDemocracy)* — On 7 April 2020 in the Ecuadorian Amazon, the Napo and Coca rivers flowed dark with oil and fuel.
The spill, caused by three ruptured pipelines, triggered the worst environmental disaster to hit Ecuador in the past 15 years. Some 15,000 gallons of oil and fuel spilled into the rivers, affecting 35,000 people directly and more than 120,000 indirectly, many of them Kichwa Indigenous people from 105 communities.
“We can see oil coming down the riverbed, help us report what is happening,” Olger Gallo, president of the Kichwa community of Panduyaku, told me at the time.
“The young people went out fishing in the early morning and when they returned their bodies were covered in oil. We need urgent help,” he added.