Carlos FresnedaLondon Correspondent

London Correspondent

Updated Monday, January 29, 2024-02:34

Ella Kissi-Debrah was nine years old when she died in 2013 from "acute respiratory failure" after suffering 27 asthma attacks. It took her mother, Rosamund, seven years to win a legal battle until the judge recognized that her

death

was caused by "excessive exposure to

pollution

" in south London (as

now stated in her death certificate

).

The combative mother, teacher and activist, has now gone a step further and has decided

to take the British Government to court

, demanding "the human right to clean air" and blaming the Department of the Environment, Transport and Health for allowing levels of nitrogen dioxide much higher than the maximum recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO).

"For me it was a

shock

to discover that my daughter had been breathing toxic air equivalent to that of

a passive smoker's 10 or 15 cigarettes a day

," admits Rosamund, who

lives 25 meters from the South Circular

,

one of the most polluted routes in London

. "If she had had this information, she could have perhaps tried to move house, but I learned all of this after her death and after spending the last two years of her life in and out of the hospital."

"No child, in any country, should die from asthma or respiratory complications caused by pollution," warns Rosamund, who

created a foundation to keep her daughter's flame alive

and was decorated last year by King Charles for her activism. . The WHO has distinguished her as a BreatheLife ambassador and next autumn she will organize, together with the Spanish doctor María Neira, the second world conference on Air Pollution and Health in Accra.

Their effort now is for the

courts to recognize the "right to clean air"

to establish jurisprudence and get politicians to take action. His claim is in fact supported by the Human Rights Act 1998, once promoted by the Labor Party and recently questioned by the Conservative Party.

Vindicate Ella's death

"If you breathe polluted air you can get asthma, you can end up getting cancer, you can shorten your life as happens when you breathe tobacco smoke," emphasizes Rosamund, who refers to WHO statistics and the seven million premature deaths to which pollution can contribute. "Everyone cares about their health and that of their children: no one wants to die."

Lawyer Ravi Mehta, from the law firm of Hodge Jones & Allen, represents Rosamund in the lawsuit against the Government and intervened last week in a preliminary hearing: "Although the lawsuit includes compensation for damages (estimated at 340,000 euros),

our objective "

is to vindicate Ella's death

and expose the actions and omissions of three government departments over the years."

Colin Thomann, the government's defense attorney, initially called for "the lawsuit to be challenged in its entirety" and warned that "the potential damages have been overestimated." A spokesperson for the Department of the Environment highlighted the improvements in air quality in British cities since 2010, although he acknowledged that "there is still work to do."

Rosamund, who became a candidate for the Green Party in the London Assembly, has also decided to wage a political battle with the

promotion of the so-called 'She's Law'

, in tribute to her daughter and for clean air to be recognized as a "human right." The legal text has the support of more than 10,000 signatures, including those of numerous experts, and sets the goal of 2030 to meet the maximum pollution levels set by the WHO.