"Indigenous peoples sue Ecuador govt, oil firms over spill", 30 Apr 2020

 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.

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...

...The plaintiffs have alleged that the oil spill has violated their constitutional rights to territory, health, information, water and food sovereignty, a clean and ecologically balanced environment, and the rights of nature...

...The Ecuadorian government has created an emergency committee charged with supervising the application of measures to mitigate environmental impacts caused by the spill and pipeline ruptures...

...Indigenous and human rights organisations are denouncing the government’s failure to undertake a proper clean-up effort, provide communities with water and food, and provide timely information about the magnitude or scope of contamination to indigenous communities downriver.