Several Peruvian public functionary have been taken hostage by members of the Amazonian Wampis kinship group , after a ruptured oil pipeline resulted in the spillage of around 3,000 drum of oil into rivers in the vicinity of the Wampis village of Mayuriaga . An emergency government decree straightaway after the spill on February 3 laid out programme to provide essential financial aid to affected community of interests , yet inexplicably turn out Mayuriaga from the list , remind locals to impound the hostages to involve assistance from the authorities .
Having formed its ownautonomous territorial governmentin November last yr , theWampistribe – which has roughly 11,000 extremity spread across 1.4 million hectares ( 3.5 million acres ) of the Peruvian Amazon – has accuse state - have get-up-and-go company Petroperú of neglect its responsibility to conduct routine maintenance study on its 40 - year - old Northern Peruvian pipeline . Similarly , following the recent rupture to the line , Peru ’s environmental regulatory body , OEFA , concludedthat the incident “ spend a penny evident that Petroperú is not follow the necessary cadence to foreclose spills that have environmental impacts . ”
Continuing its report , OEFA states that 20 similar failures have happen over the past five years , bestow that such incident take “ a high peril of adverse impingement … to the lives and health of those people who live in areas conterminous to these spills . ”
The latest such spill is report to have foul both the Cashacaño and Morona rivers . In response , Wampis representative Wrays Perez Ramirez has called on the government to provide support to the residents of Mayuriaga in the form of food and water , while also imposing sanctions against Petroperú . To ensure the protection of locals , the Wampis have necessitate that the pumping of oil along the pipeline be immediately suspend .
However , having been omitted from the list of residential area due to receive government assist , Mayuriaga residents seize a grounded military helicopter , entrance three Petroperú employee along with four OEFA official and a government minister .
In reception , deputy cultivation minister Patricia Balbuena has insisted that the deletion of Mayuriaga from the decree was a “ mistake that should be compensate as soon as possible . ”
