A Kenyan court has cleared the path for what could become one of Africa’s most consequential environmental lawsuits, allowing nearly 300 petitioners to proceed with a class-action case against British oil giant BP Plc over alleged toxic waste contamination that has silently devastated communities in northern Kenya for more than 40 years.
The Environment and Land Court in Isiolo, central Kenya has ruled the case — filed in February 2026 by 299 petitioners from the remote settlements of Kargi and Kalacha in Marsabit County — can advance to a full hearing.
The Allegations: Toxic Waste, Dry Wells and Decades of Silence
The lawsuit targets BP through its predecessor, Amoco Corporation, which BP acquired in 1998.
Between 1985 and 1993, Amoco conducted oil exploration across northern and northwestern Kenya, drilling at least 10 wells — eight in the Anza Basin and two in the Mandera Basin — near Kargi and Kalacha in the Chalbi Desert. All wells were dry.
What Amoco left behind, according to the petition, was far more toxic than an empty borehole.
Court documents allege that hazardous and toxic contaminants — including radium isotopes, arsenic, lead and nitrates — were improperly dumped in unlined pits or left exposed at exploration sites, contaminating the groundwater that these pastoral communities depend on entirely for drinking and livestock watering.
“The documented acts and omissions constitute environmental genocide.” — Kelvin Kubai, attorney for the petitioners
The petitioners allege the contamination has caused the deaths of more than 500 residents from cancers and other illnesses linked to drinking poisoned water.
Thousands of livestock are also said to have died after consuming the contaminated groundwater — a catastrophic loss for communities whose livelihoods depend entirely on their herds.
Communities in the Dark: The Human Cost
Investigative reporting by The Intercept paints a grim picture of what unfolded in Kargi after Amoco departed.
Community members reportedly found white substances left behind at drilling sites and, with no warning of any danger, began using the material in cooking.
Residents describe watching people fall ill in the years that followed, with cancer rates in the area rising sharply.
Between 2007 and 2009, multiple water tests found that local water sources failed to meet World Health Organization safety standards.
Kenya’s water resources authority declared the water unfit for human consumption. A local nonprofit identified high levels of nitrates and arsenic — both commonly used in drilling operations — as the probable cause of livestock deaths.
Despite these findings, no official cleanup of the affected sites has ever been conducted.
BP’s Inheritance: The 1998 Amoco Merger and Legal Liability
BP acquired Amoco Corporation in 1998, one of the largest corporate mergers in history at the time.
Along with Amoco’s global assets came its environmental liabilities — including, the petitioners argue, the toxic legacy in northern Kenya.
The case is notable not only for its scope but for the legal precedent it could set.
If successful, it would hold a multinational oil company accountable for environmental damage caused by a predecessor corporation in a remote African community — a scenario that has been attempted in other jurisdictions, most famously in the long-running Chevron/Texaco case in Ecuador, but rarely with success on African soil.
BP has not issued a detailed public response to the lawsuit. Kenya’s National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) has noted that the country’s environmental policy framework was enacted years after the exploration activities took place.
Kenyan Government Also Named: Ministries Face Accountability Questions
The lawsuit does not stop at BP. Multiple Kenyan government ministries and agencies — including those responsible for environment, water, mining and health — are also named as respondents.
The petition accuses them of failing to act despite evidence of pollution and of not ensuring that Amoco properly managed drilling waste, disposed of refuse and prevented toxic fluids from escaping into the environment.
The National Oil Corporation of Kenya (NOCK) is also among the respondents.
Petitioners are demanding that BP bear the full cost of environmental restoration, compensation for the loss of lives and livelihoods, and broader restorative measures to address the environmental damage across affected regions.
A Wider Crisis: Similar Claims Emerging Across Northern Kenya
The case is backed by the Pastoralist Alliance for Resilience and Adaptation Across Nations (PARAAN), a civil society network representing 37 organisations across nine Kenyan counties and three East African countries.
PARAAN coordinator Liban Golicha described the situation as a long-standing historical injustice.
Significantly, the Kargi and Kalacha case may be only the beginning. Similar allegations of toxic waste dumping by oil exploration companies have emerged in other northern Kenya counties including Garissa, Wajir and Isiolo.
PARAAN has begun receiving inquiries from communities in these areas about how to pursue parallel legal action — or whether they can be joined to the existing case.
Amoco was not the only company to explore in Marsabit County during that era. Chevron and Total also conducted exploration in parts of the region during the 1980s, raising questions about the extent of potential contamination across a far wider geography.
What the Petitioners Are Seeking
The 299 petitioners are seeking the following from the court:
- Compensation for the loss of human life — including the estimated 500+ deaths attributed to contaminated water
- Compensation for the loss of thousands of livestock
- Full environmental cleanup and restoration of all affected sites in the Chalbi Desert and surrounding areas
- Restorative measures to address long-term damage to groundwater and the broader ecosystem
- Accountability from Kenyan government ministries for their failure to act on evidence of contamination
A human rights defender who spoke to Aljazeera said that she hoped justice will be served.
“Ever since they(BP) stepped here our people started to develop illness such as throat and stomach cancer. We have lost hundreds of people and thousands of livestock as well.”
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