WCC News: Around Colombian coal mine, “people get very ill from the dust”

On 5 June, churches and faith-based organizations from Colombia, the United Kingdom, and Ireland, together with investment and ecumenical partners, submitted a complaint under the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises on Responsible Business Conduct concerning HSBC Holdings plc and its financial relationship with Glencore, the company operating the Cerrejón coal mine in La Guajira, Colombia. This is the second of a three-part feature story that illustrates the grave health effects—particularly on children—of the Cerrejón mining operation.  Yuleidis Amayo inspects a chick in her backyard in La Granja, Barrancos, La Guajira, Colombia. The Wayúu indigenous people of La Guajira, Colombia, have faced decades of displacement, contamination and cultural destruction linked to the Cerrejón open-cast coal mine — one of the largest in the world. Communities report polluted water, failing harvests, and chronic respiratory disease, while remaining excluded from the legal recognition that would give them access to basic rights and state services. Photo: Sean Hawkey/WCC 06 August 2026 In the villages around the Cerrejón coal mine, there are perceptible booms that vibrate. "They carry out blasting operations at any time of the day or night," says Mildreth Guetta Uriana, a young Wayúu woman from an Indigenous reserve near the mine, weeping as she tells the story.  "The pollution reaches our village—and it impacts our health. We live with it every day, especially when it rains… the vapour rises and carries the smell of sulphur into our homes. People get very ill from the dust and that smell, including my little brother.” For Uriana, the crisis is embodied in her brother. "My little brother has had a respiratory problem since he was a child. Every day I see my mother cry for that boy, for his difficulty breathing—in his own land, in his own territory, where he was born." In just the first three months of 2024, La Guajira recorded 649 cases of acute malnutrition in children under five, according to the National Institute of Health. Of those, 84% were Indigenous children. In 2023 alone, 70 child malnutrition deaths were recorded in La Guajira—approximately 30% of Colombia's entire national total, despite the department making up a small fraction of the country's population. A further 2,223 Wayúu children were found to be living with acute malnutrition. The year before, 2022, closed with 85 child deaths from malnutrition in the department. By late 2024, the National Institute of Health confirmed La Guajira had recorded the highest number of child malnutrition deaths of any department in the country—31 confirmed deaths by November—while malnutrition-related illness cases had risen a further 7.19% on 2023's figures. Community leaders dispute even these figures, insisting the official statistics fail to capture the true scale of the crisis. Many deaths go unregistered because Indigenous children in rural communities often have no birth certificates.  María Magdalena Brito, Wayúu indigenous leader of El Pimientón, La Guajira in Colombia. Photo: Sean Hawkey/WCC María Magdalena Brito pauses mid-interview to speak of her own loss. "Right now we are living through the death of our mother. Today marks exactly nine months since she died. What took her? A pulmonary illness—caused by the contamination of Cerrejón."  The Colombian government has taken some steps to address the emergency. President Gustavo Petro announced in 2025 that child mortality from malnutrition had fallen by nearly half since 2022, with La Guajira specifically recording a 48% drop. But human rights groups say that the structural causes—lack of water, contaminated land, displacement—remain unaddressed, and that improvement is fragile.  Jocelyn Carolina describes the daily reality for children in her community: "The children have constant colds, constant respiratory problems. The animals are also affected."  Global patterns in mining impacts The health crisis around Cerrejón bears remarkable similarities to other coal mine neighbours across the world. Coal mining and processing expose communities to air and water pollution through dust particles, heavy metals, and volatile organic compounds—and these are linked to respiratory diseases and cardiovascular health problems. The respiratory impact around coal mines is consistent. In Appalachian communities in the United States, lung cancer and other respiratory diseases in coal mining counties are disproportionately higher than regional and national averages. In 2014, West Virginia University researchers demonstrated—for the first time—a direct causal link, rather than just a correlation, between toxic dust from surface coal mines and the growth of lung cancer cells in people living nearby. A systematic review of European studies found increased risk of lung, colon, colorectal, and thyroid cancers in communities living near coal mines. There is also evidence on the impact on the unborn. The rate of children born with birth defects is 42% higher in areas near mountaintop removal coal mining in the United States. Neurotoxic metals including arsenic, lead, and mercury—all associated with coal mining contamination of water and soil—are linked to abnormal foetal growth, adverse birth outcomes, and cognitive and behavioural problems in later childhood. Communities near coal mines in Mozambique, Burkina Faso, and Tanzania have reported increases in newborn malformations and miscarriages, which they attributed to chemicals in their water supply. José Luis Amayo Urrarillo, community leader of the Wayúu indigenous people of La Guajira, Colombia in Barrancos, La Guajira, Colombia. Photo: Sean Hawkey/WCC There is also a heavy toll on mental health, with research finding increased rates of depression in coal mining communities, compounded by the destruction of landscape, noise, and dust, and the long-term stress of watching children fall ill. These mental health burdens are expected to last for decades—even long after the mines have closed. Heavy metals and carcinogens in contaminated water can linger for decades after mining ends. Communities near Cerrejón are asking what the land will look like, and what their situation will be after 2034, when the mine's licence expires. The global evidence suggests they are right to be worried; health impacts don’t stop when the last train leaves. The workers' side José Luis Amayo Urrarillo, who worked 25 years at Cerrejón in a security role, is withering about the protection workers and communities were given. "They gave us useless filters—filters that let the most dangerous particles through. What was the point? What is the point of money without life? These diseases are going to mutate. And if you go for a medical examination, all the doctors say what the companies want them to say.” Urrarillo, whose community was promised employment quotas, training, and scholarships when environmental permits were signed, speaks with bitter clarity about what those promises were worth. "We signed the environmental permit agreement—three days of negotiations in Buenavista, demanding job quotas, training, scholarships. They didn't comply."  As well as the impacts on local communities, poor working conditions at the mine have often been highlighted, including exploitation through cheaper labour, unhealthy working conditions, and 12-hour shifts. Pro-union workers have reportedly been intimidated or replaced with cheaper casual labour. In 2008, Sintracarbón union leader Adolfo González Montes was tortured and murdered at home. A 91-day strike in 2020 reflected how far conditions had deteriorated. Employment at the mine, other community members say, is allocated not by qualification but by political connection. "The jobs at Cerrejón depend on who you know," says one community leader. "If you're not their friend, you have no right to work there. I told them: 'Give us an opportunity - even five jobs.' But it wasn't possible. Because unless we hand over the territory, they won't help us with anything.” Vast spoil heaps tower over the landscape around the Cerrejón coal mine in La Guajira, Colombia. The waste material excavated to expose the coal seams has reshaped the terrain across tens of thousands of hectares, smothering vegetation, contaminating groundwater and generating clouds of fine toxic dust that carry across surrounding Wayúu communities — communities that have never consented to, nor benefited from, the mine's operations. Photo: Sean Hawkey/WCC The churches’ complaint in relation to HSBC bank is one example of the implementation of the WCC Hope for Children initiative, catalyzed by children and youth who urged the WCC to make climate justice one of the pillars of the Churches’ Commitments to Children programme. The World Council of Churches is inviting churches, ecumenical partners, and faith-based organizations worldwide to support an open letter backing an OECD complaint submitted by Methodist churches in Colombia, Great Britain, Ireland, and partners concerning HSBC’s financial relationship with Glencore and the Cerrejón coal mine in Colombia. Churches, ecumenical partners, and other organizations wishing to endorse the initiative are invited to sign the Open letter here. Indigenous people in Colombia pay—with their lives—for coal (WCC feature story, 22 July 2026) WCC invites churches, communities to support call for responsible finance, climate justice (WCC news release, 10 June 2026) Faith-based groups submit OECD complaint concerning HSBC financing linked to Cerrejón coal mine in Colombia (WCC news release, 05 June 2026) Learn more about the Churches’ Commitments to Children and Climate-Responsible Banking Sources for statistics See more

The World Council of Churches promotes Christian unity in faith, witness and service for a just and peaceful world. An ecumenical fellowship of churches founded in 1948, today the WCC brings together 356 Protestant, Orthodox, Anglican and other churches representing more than 580 million Christians in over 120 countries, and works cooperatively with the Roman Catholic Church. The WCC general secretary is Rev. Prof. Dr Jerry Pillay from the Uniting Presbyterian Church in Southern Africa.  Media contact: +41 79 507 6363; www.oikoumene.org/press Our visiting address is: World Council of Churches Chemin du Pommier 42 Kyoto Building Le Grand-Saconnex CH-1218 Switzerland