Residents and local health workers say cancer cases and deaths have risen steadily, with more than 500 people reported dead from cancers affecting the digestive system, particularly the oesophagus and stomach. Many were from villages where access to medical care remains limited, News.Az reports, citing AL JAzeera.

They believe rising cancer cases are linked to toxic waste left behind during oil exploration in the 1980s.

Six years ago, doctors diagnosed Maisan Chamuset, 74, with throat cancer and told him he might never speak normally again.

Today, Chamuset communicates through a small pipe inserted in his throat, and his voice comes out strained and mechanical, a reminder of the effect the disease had on his life.

Chamuset’s experience reflects a growing trend in the desert settlement of Kargi, where death tolls are on the rise, including his wife, who died of stomach cancer in 2018.

“Everyone here has similar problems,” Chamuset says. “Many people have died — women, men, young people. Those responsible should be held to account.”

For years, some of the suffering families perceived the deaths as divine punishment. Suspicion eventually shifted to something more terrestrial, to what had happened in the desert decades earlier.

Between 1986 and 1989, the US oil company Amoco, later acquired by BP, drilled exploration wells around the Chalbi Desert in search of oil. Foreign crews worked the area, found no viable deposits, and left. Residents say the company left more behind than empty wells.