Oil giant Shell is being sued over oil spills in the Niger delta by communities which want Shell to clean up their land. Some of the claimants are the Ogale, a community of 40,000 farmers or fishermen living in Rivers State. The Bille community of fishermen are the other party suing. Neither community has had clean drinking water since the spills began in 1989. Their case is being handled by law firm Leigh Day, who point to a November 2015 report by Amnesty International in which Shell said four spill sites would be cleaned up. They are still contaminated. In 2011 the United Nations Environment Programme found water contaminated with oil by-products and recommended a clean-up. Pipelines are targets for thieves who steal crude oil and refine it locally, leading to more spills and damage through explosions. Shell dismisses any suggestion that it has knowingly continued to use unsafe pipelines, and says it is at an ‘early stage’ in reviewing the claims.