Brothers Giovanni and Michele de Candia have been fishing off the Italian coast of Molfetta for decades. It is a livelihood that they claim has come with an increasing cost to their health. The cause is exposure to a legacy long dumped in Europe’s seas.

“We had problems breathing, after four hours, it was hard to breathe,” said Giovanni. “Our eyes burned and then there were problems with the fingers, especially the tip of the fingers that you use for working, there and on the body, red boils appeared, sort of like mushrooms. Then they would dry and disappear.”

Government environmental agencies have run tests on the brothers and other fishermen. They are still waiting for the results.

But Michele knows why he is sick – mustard gas. He told euronews: “These bombs around us, with time, the metal containers get corroded and it (the mustard gas) comes out of the containers and moves with the water. It gets on the nets. And when we pull them up, our hands, our eyes burn and all that.”

“My father fished with weights, he would pull out full cases thrown into the sea by the Germans, the English, all over the coast, dumped all over, depending on the weather,” said Giovanni. “If the weather was bad, they would go just beyond the port and boom!.. they threw them in. Here there are plenty: conventional and non-conventional bombs including mustard gas.

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