Via AP :
" YARGALMA, Nigeria : Mound after tiny mound of red clay earth dots the cemetery on the outskirts of this impoverished Nigerian village where grieving parents come to pray.
Children began falling ill months ago here and in a half-dozen other villages in this remote northern region on the cusp of the Sahara Desert. Some could not stand, some went blind or deaf.
Then they began dying.
Doctors suspected malaria. But they were wrong - after 160 died and hundreds more were ailing, blood tests revealed the real killer: Lead unearthed by villagers digging for gold.
In a tragedy described by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as "unprecedented" in its work with lead poisoning worldwide, most victims are children.
Many had played in homes or village common areas contaminated by lead. The level of exposure was so high that most blood samples were off the scale on lead screening machines.
The existence of gold deposits in this area along the Niger border had been long known. But it wasn't until gold prices soared in recent years that villagers began heading into the bush to search for it."
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