Cyrille Traoré Ndembi, a father of four in the Republic of Congo, thought help was on the way for Cyrfanie, his youngest child. 

More than a year ago, in December 2024, the country’s environmental minister shut down a battery recycling facility near Ndembi’s home that spewed lead into the air, contaminating soil and poisoning neighbors, including Cyrfanie. The minister ordered the company operating the factory, Metssa Congo, to pay the community about $18,000 for cleanup and medical care.

The World Health Organization, which categorizes lead as one of the top 10 chemicals of concern for public health, also offered to assist. The organization’s representative in the country told Ndembi in a letter that the WHO would work with the government to “take adequate measures.”

That was the last Ndembi and his neighbors heard from anyone in authority about the factory that had poisoned the town of Vindoulou. 

They haven’t seen the money the government ordered Metssa Congo to pay. The factory was dismantled, but no one did followup testing, treated the victims or removed tainted soil. And there has been no further communication from the WHO. 

“It's the status quo, as if nothing had happened,” Ndembi said. “It is truly frustrating to deal with leaders who fail to grasp the risks facing their fellow citizens who are being poisoned by lead.”

The Examination has reported on the community of Vindoulou since 2023. As part of our initial investigation, we commissioned blood tests of 10 volunteers. They all had lead poisoning, including four children. 

Cyrfanie, who had been tested months earlier as part of a separate analysis organized by Ndembi, had a blood lead level of 53.4 micrograms per deciliter. At that level, international standards recommend hospitalization to remove the lead. Lifelong brain damage is almost certain.

Many countries, including the Republic of Congo, have laws and policies that require companies responsible for pollution to pay for the cleanup. In much of Africa, however, that rarely happens. That includes the Republic of Congo, where an authoritarian regime has ruled for more than four decades.

In a handful of cases in Africa where polluted sites have been cleaned up, nonprofit environmental organizations have led the way.

Metssa Congo is no longer in business. Its former owner, Arun Goswami, could not be located. Goswmai previously denied the factory was responsible for lead poisoning and said his factory operated according to international standards and with the approval of the Congolese government.

Arlette Soudan-Nonault, the Republic of Congo’s minister for the environment, who visited Vindoulou and ordered Metssa Congo to pay for blood tests and medical care, did not respond to repeated requests for comment. 

In an interview, Vincent Dossou Sodjinou, the WHO’s representative for the Republic of Congo, said that he met with Congolese officials in January and that they agreed to set up three study groups: one to test people for lead, another to test soil and water, and a third to determine whether lead has contaminated plants and livestock.

“The first step is to conduct a health assessment,” Sodjinou said. “As soon as we have results, we can take action.” Sodjinou said there is no timeline for action and he didn’t expect testing anytime soon. “The country has been in a financial crisis since 2014,” he said, by way of explanation. 

The WHO does not often provide direct medical or financial support when poisoning is discovered in a community, Sodjinou said, but it was willing to receive and coordinate outside financial support in this case. “If we find a partner who says, ‘We want to finance the Congo, but we want to go through the WHO,’ we can do that,” Sodjinou said.

Vindoulou is not the only African community coping with the legacy of pollution from lead battery recycling. Working with local journalists, The Examination has identified polluting factories in Cameroon, Tanzania, Ghana, Togo and other countries.

In Nigeria, a team of reporters that included the Premium Times, a leading newspaper, and The New York Times revealed lead poisoning among residents living near factories that shipped recycled lead to the United States. In response, officials have conducted hundreds of blood tests and tested almost 200 soil, air and water samples. Officials are now trying to figure out how much the polluting factories will pay to clean up Ogijo, the lead recycling capital of Africa.

In Vindoulou, a town of about 9,000, the most urgent need is a cleanup, experts said. 

When workers dismantled the factory last year, they hauled away the roof and some equipment. But the structure remains, along with the contaminated soil at the plant and in the surrounding community. Children, who may ingest lead particles from soil or dust while playing outside, are at most risk.

“Lead does not decay or break down or transform into another element over time,” said Esmond Wisdom Quansah, regional programs director for Africa at Pure Earth, a nonprofit that cleans up toxic sites. “This means that unless it's remediated or cleaned up, the risk will remain for generations.”

Quansah said that while it was difficult to estimate the cost to make Vindoulou safe without studying the site, previous efforts in the region have cost $60,000 to $120,000. 

Cyrfanie lived for years in her family’s cinderblock home meters from the walls of the factory, and she still plays in the front garden. She recently moved a few blocks away with her mother, Ndembi said. Neighboring children walk through the courtyard of the local primary school and kick up dust when scoring goals at the nearby soccer field.

“Closing the factory is a good step,” Quansah said. “However, that is not the end of the environmental hazard.”