ON THE WATERFRONT Project
EVE- waterfront- Nigeria
A man carries containers full of fuel. Bunkering is very frequent among villagers : the go with their pirogues to the oil production sites and steel oil to sell it on a parallel market, April 2008, Bille village, Niger Delta, Nigeria.
The mangrove swamps of the Niger Delta are a maze of twists and turns. The only way to get to the island of Bille, known as the "river state", is by boat.
Oil stations are scattered throughout the area, and the stench of grimy water can be overwhelming in places.
More than 50,000 barrels of oil a day are produced in the Niger Delta - that is hundreds of thousands of US dollars - yet residents remain desperately poor.
As many as 60,000 people live literally on top of this multi-billion dollar industry, but many are unemployed and their lives consist of guns, alcohol abuse and violent crime. Tension on the island are rising.
