Indigenous peoples filed a lawsuit against the Ecuadorian government and private and state oil companies on April 29, 2020, in the wake of one of the country’s biggest oil spills in over a decade.
On April 7, an estimated 15,000 barrels of crude oil gushed into two of the country’s most important rivers following the rupture of two major oil pipelines in Ecuador’s northern Amazon.
The spill has affected over 2,000 indigenous families and left an estimated 120,000 people without access to the river’s fresh water.
The lawsuit was filed in the provincial court of Puerto Francisco de Orellana, in the region of Sucumbios by the Amazonian indigenous organization or CONFENIAE and Kichwa indigenous federation or FCUNAE, national and international human rights organisations, Catholic bishops of two impacted provinces, and affected families.
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