Oil production pollution is threatening health of thousands of people in South Sudan, according to a German-based human rights group. 

The Economic Times says dangerous heavy metals used in oil production have leaked into drinking water sources used by 180,000 people with life-threatening health risks.

“The total toxic stress — as found in the hair samples — of the human population of the area is life-threatening,” said Klaus-Dietrich Runow, from Germany’s Institute for Functional Medicine and Environmental Health, one of two separate independent toxicologists who assessed the samples.

Klaus Stieglitz noted that the research built on six years of hydrological tests by the group in the region.

Despite the small number of samples analysed, the “homogeneity” of the results suggests they apply to “large sections” of the surrounding population.