The struggle of uranium workers for acknowledgement of health impacts and compensation

29 August 2025

The struggle of uranium workers for acknowledgement of health impacts and compensation – Niger

Nuclear Monitor #929

Gunter Wippel, uranium-network.org

PART 3 and 4 of this series on uranium mining dealt with resistance and opposition.
This part (5) deals with the – ongoing – struggle for acknowledgement of health impacts on miners and the general public and the struggle for compensation.
The current political situation with a new military government in Niger, its cooperation with Russia and the ‘departure’ of France and French ORANO does not make the situation easier.

When mining started, people were mostly unaware of the adverse impacts uranium mining, and they were not informed by companies or governments. The long period of colonization which African countries had experienced, sometimes going along with brutal oppression, did not help either. The prospect of salaried jobs in often poor regions was – and is – a reason for people to work in mines.

When miners began to fall sick, died prematurely of ‘unexplained’ diseases – and started to ask for information and then compensation, they basically ran into a wall of disinformation and denial. The struggle started.

NIGER

When French CEA – Commissariat a l’Energie Atomique (CEA) had discovered uranium deposits in the sparsely habited north of Niger near Agadez, a region which formerly had been a French colony, people were promised jobs and prosperity. COGEMA (later AREVA, now ORANO) promised that the mining town Arlit, newly constructed in the middle of nowhere (to Europeans, for local Tuareg and others, it was home) would become ‘a second Paris‘. Bungalows, some with swimming pools, were built for the engineers, and houses for the workers many of whom came from far away for the jobs.

Disillusionment came when the price of uranium dropped on the world market in the late 1970s and early 1980s, in parts due to the collapse of the uranium cartel which had artificially kept the price of uranium high. Production of uranium dropped, workers lost their jobs and the boom town dilapidated.
African film maker Idrissou Mora Kpai portrayed the downfall of Arlit in his film “Arlit, deuxieme Paris” ^[1].

Around the turn of the millennium, mine workers in Arlit area began to fall ill or die prematurely, from ‘unexplained’ diseases in numbers alarming their colleagues. At the time, the mines were in operation since 30+ years – roughly the latency period of lung cancer.
Medical doctors in company hospitals were not authorized to diagnose occupational diseases.

Mine workers started a NGO, Aghirin’Man, a tamasheq (Tuareg) term (often translated as ‘shield of the soul’) to find out about the reasons for the premature deaths which left families in awe and economic troubles. In 2003, CRIIRAD physicists – to whom Aghirin’Man had reached out – traveled to Niger; upon arrival, their radiation measuring devices were confiscated. Some, however, had been sent by mail, this enabled CRIIRAD to work. The first report was published in December 2003^[2], in April 2005 a more detailed report followed^[3].
The situation in Niger is also addressed in a 52 minute documentary: “Nucléaire, une pollution durable” in French ^[4].
CRIIRAD had found radiation levels above the levels WHO deemed safe in drinking water, in soil, and in the air. Although CRIIRAD made no direct statement in regard to health damages, it was clear that the elevated levels of radiation have impacts on health of people in the mining towns, not only on the mine workers.

In 2009, mining company AREVA and SHERPA, a lawyers associations, Medecins du Monde, AghirIn’Man, CRIIRAD, L’Association Mounana (Gabon) and CATRAM (organisation of former uranium miners in Gabon) established an ‘Observatoire de Sante’.
The NGOs aimed to provide legal support to victims of the mining activities, contribute to the emergence of regulations governing the activities of economic players, and raise awareness to corporate social responsibility and good governance issues among civil society, economic players and institutions^[5].

In 2010, CRIIRAD cooperated with GREENPEACE and returned to Niger to evaluate the radiologic situation; GREENPEACE, among other things, interviewed local people in regard to the health situation. The results are published in a booklet “Left in the Dust – Uranium Mining in Niger” ^[6], highlighting some major problems around health (page 55):

> Workers stated that after having stopped working for AREVA, they were not treated in the company’s hospital anymore although, according to their contract, AREVA should take care of their health for at least three years after finishing work. This was not done at least in some cases.

> There are no doctors licensed to diagnose an occupational disease

“In these hospitals, there are no occupational doctors. There are surgeons, general practitioners and midwives. They are very good at their jobs! But there is not a doctor working to declare occupational diseases, as required by Nigerien law. AREVA has done everything to avoid that, which explains the absence of occupational illnesses for 40 years. It’s very shocking.” (GP, ‘Left in the Dust’, p.55)

> Health problems were wrongly classified as HIV or malaria when in reality it was cancer.
This sheds another light on a report by AREVA, claiming that cancers were “extremely rare”.

“In 2005 shocking allegations were made against one of the hospitals that it was misclassifying cases of cancer as HIV. According to the Sherpa 2005 report, a patient who suffers from lung cancer is never informed of that diagnosis. A former employee of one of the hospitals said that “the only confirmed cases of cancer involve people from outside the mining companies” and goes on in a very serious charge, “when these symptoms affect agents of corporations, one talks about malaria, AIDS…”

> Workers of the mine were denied access to their medical records.

For more in-depth publications see @ CRIIRAD: https://www.criirad.org/somniger/

GREENPEACE called upon AREVA to act and solve the problems addressed (GP booklet, p.63).

By 2009, the documentary “Uranium – l’Heritage empoisonne” ^[7] (Uranium – The poisoned Heritage) by Dominique Hennequin, was released; it covers the impact of uranium mining in France, Niger and Gabon.

In 2010, IPS news stated in an article “Lack of Data on Causes of Death Buffers French Company” ^[8] … “that high radioactivity can be still be detected on the ground near Nigerien uranium mines, especially in the mining towns of Arlit and Akokan” quoting “Rianne Teule, nuclear energy campaigner for Greenpeace International, and Laure Antoine, spokesperson for the French doctors’ association Medecins du Monde, confirmed that it is practically impossible to document causes of death among Nigerien mine workers because of lack of access to data.”
The simple fact of not collecting data on the health of miners helps AREVA to hide the negative health impacts on miners.

By the end of 2012, lawyers’ association SHERPA left the ‘Observatoire de Sante’, stating it is “incomprehensible and unacceptable that the compensation process, while it has benefited two families of French expatriates (which is notoriously insufficient), has not benefited any Nigerian or Gabonese workers, even though the medical situation of more than a hundred of them has been examined.” AREVA said that 700 workers benefitted from medical examination, but also acknowledged that out of 700 only two were compensated for health damages ^[9].

The case of Serge Venel

One of the employees was Serge Venel, an engineer; he had lived in Akokan’s housing for engineers, from 1978 (aged 28) to 1985. He then returned to France with his family. By 2008, he started to feel always tired and began coughing. A doctor diagnosed lung cancer due to uranium inhalation. The doctor advised him to get the lung cancer acknowledged as an occupational disease very soon since he would not have much time left. Serge Venel passed away the next year, 31. August 2009.

Social security accepted his disease as caused by his profession. Venel’s wife and daughter started to track down his former colleagues: of 350, she was able to find 110.
“Of those, 70 were either dead or sick. And out of 110 people, 70 have died or are ill. Some have oesophageal cancer, kidney cancer and throat cancer. We also have lung cancer, of course, and bone cancer. But it’s true that it’s not just cancer of lung and bones. We have women with thyroid cancer and blood cancer.” ^7,[10]

The Venel’s took the case to court. In May 2012 „[t]he court for social affairs (Tribunal des Affaires de Sécurité Sociale (TASS)) in Melun condemned AREVA on Friday in regard to the death of a former employee [Serge Venel] of a uranium mine of the French group in Niger, announced the lawyer of the victim’s family. The court ruled that AREVA had committed a ‘not excusable mistake’ …” ^[11]
A compensation surpassing € 200,000 was fixed plus a doubling of the pension of the widow.

The author of this article attended the court session in Melun and spoke with the Venel family. They indicated that many other former workers were following the legal proceedings and, depending on the outcome, may also want to sue AREVA. Of course, AREVA was aware of that.

The “cold shower”, as some media called it, came a year later (2013): “The nuclear giant has won a case before the Paris Court of Appeal against the family of Serge Venel …”
The court ruled that AREVA “holder of the mining deposit concession”, could not be held liable as an employer, according to the court; only the Nigerian company COMINAK which operates the site and with which the employee had signed his employment contract, could be sued.”^[12]

The family would have had to take the case to Niger. Besides costs and complications, it seemed impossible to win the case in Niger, also due to the fact that the state is profiting from uranium exploitation.
The prospect of compensation for workers who had fallen ill or for relatives and families of deceased workers went to zero.

Conclusion

Uranium miners – or their family members – were not able to secure compensation from AREVA / ORANO although there is evidence that peoples’ health was – and continues to be – harmed due to the continued exposure to radiation via a variety of pathways.

NGO Aghirin’Man continues to work, among other things, to remove radioactively contaminated scrap metal from the market and from houses in order to minimize exposure of people to radioactivity. They are also working to get closed down Akouta mine, operated by ORANO’s subsidiary COMINAK, cleaned up and tailings covered to reduce future contamination.

In January 2023, Syntramin, the Niger mine workers trade union, launched a court case against COMINAK in regard to health care: “The second point of contention concerns the coverage of miners’ healthcare costs, with employees complaining that they are unable to benefit from this care and that serious pathologies are not covered.”

COMINAK managing director countered, claiming “ … there is a 5-year health insurance scheme, and that the Agadez regional health observatory provides free post-professional medical consultations for all former miners.” ^[13]

Latest developments

In March 2021, Akouta mine, operated by COMINAK, had been closed down due to the depletion of uranium deposits. A clean-up operation was started, also due to NGO Aghirin’Man and Civil Society.

However, in early 2025, the director of COMINAK stated ”Orano Mining has informed COMINAK of the temporary suspension of financing for the site rehabilitation works (RdS)”, and asked companies working on rehabilitation of the mine to remove all vehicles and equipment before 21 February 2025 (personal communication with AghirIn’Man).
The people in the mining town will continue to be exposed to radiation for a not foreseeable time.

The suspension of financing the rehabilitation work comes especially astonishing after ORANO published a 2024 “Net income for the period 712 Billion €” ^[14].

The new (military) government in Niger had withdrawn mining licenses from ORANO for the Imouraren project and through blockade of the ECOWAS countries, the shipping of already produced yellowcake had become impossible.
These circumstances may contribute to the unwillingness of ORANO to continue payments for clean-up work of Akouta.

[1] A 3min clip can be watched here: https://idrimora.com/projects/arlit/ full length via Vimeo

[2] www.criirad.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/notecriiradfinal.pdf

[3] www.criirad.org/actualites/dossiers2005/niger/notecriiradarlit.pdf

[4] www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKmgOLnvBDo&list=PL3IbOGKW-BxZnXxOY9JGFFwuo5qZ_r5-g&index=12, from 13:00h on

[5] https://www.business-humanrights.org/fr/derni%C3%A8res-actualit%C3%A9s/niger-mise-en-place-officielle-de-lobservatoire-de-la-sant%C3%A9-de-la-r%C3%A9gion-dagadez-par-areva-soins-m%C3%A9dicaux-pour-son-personnel-des-mines-du-niger/

[6] https://media.greenpeace.org/archive/Report–Left-in-the-Dust-27MZIFIXELWO.html,
video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioRtzOWm07A, also available with German subtitles

[7] www.dailymotion.com/video/xuydiy

[8] www.ipsnews.net/2010/04/niger-lack-of-data-on-causes-of-death-buffers-french-company/)

[9] www.actu-environnement.com/ae/news/fin-accord-sherpa-areva-sante-mineurs-uranium-17378.php4

[10] Statement by Peggy Venel, Feature by Bettina Rühl, Deutschlandfunk, https://assets.deutschlandfunk.de/FILE_f2a0a91bc56d846f33a78466c3d57225/original.pdf

[11] www.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2012/05/11/areva-condamne-apres-la-mort-par-cancer-d-un-ex-salarie-d-une-mine-d-uranium_1699804_3244.html

[12] www.nouvelobs.com/societe/20131025.AFP0084/la-justice-douche-les-espoirs-d-ex-mineurs-d-areva-victimes-de-cancer.html