operating in the area . '' Amnesty leveled a wide range of charges in its report . `` People living in the Niger Delta have to drink , cook with and wash in polluted water , '' said Audrey Gaughran , who co-authored the report . `` They eat fish contaminated with oil and other toxins -- if they are lucky enough to be able to still find fish . The land they farm on is being destroyed . `` After oil spills , the air they breathe smells of oil , gas and other pollutants . People complain of breathing problems and skin lesions , and yet neither the government nor the oil companies monitor the human impacts of oil pollution . '' The report looks at oil spills , gas flaring , waste dumping and other environmental impacts from the oil industry . The majority of the evidence in the report relates to Shell , the main oil company operating in the region . `` Despite its public claims to be a socially and environmentally responsible corporation , Shell continues to directly harm human rights through its failure to adequately prevent and mitigate pollution and environmental damage in
-LRB- CNN -RRB- -- Nigeria 's state oil company rejected criticism from a leading human rights group Wednesday , calling an Amnesty International report `` inaccurate . '' File image of Shell 's oil and gas terminal on Bonny Island in southern Nigeria 's Niger Delta . `` We have issues with the report , '' said Levi Ajuonoma , a spokesman for Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation . Amnesty said Tuesday that pollution and environmental impacts from the oil industry in the Niger Delta are creating a `` human rights tragedy '' in which local people suffer poor health and loss of livelihood . Governments and oil companies are failing to be accountable for the problems , Amnesty said in its report , called `` Petroleum , Pollution and Poverty in the Niger Delta . '' But the state oil company said it was local communities who cause much of the environmental damage by vandalizing pipelines for monetary gain . `` We take environmental damage very seriously , '' Ajuonoma said . `` Pipeline damage is a major cause of pollution , '' he argued , blaming `` communities who ... vandalize pipelines and make claims on the oil company