"Our community is disappointed but not discouraged by this judgment," King Emere Godwin Bebe Okpabi, ruler of the Ogale Community, said in a statement ."This decision has to be appealed, not just for Ogale but for many other people in the Niger Delta who will be shut out if this decision is allowed to stand."Shell is simply being asked to clean up its oil and to compensate the communities it has devastated," he said. The company's lawyer, Peter Goldsmith, told judge Peter Fraser during a hearing in November that the cases concerned "fundamentally Nigerian issues", and should not be heard in London.  However, the lawyer representing the claimants, Daniel Leader, of Leigh Day, said that the spills had "blighted the lives of the thousands".
He said they had "no choice" other than to seek legal redress in London.
Goldsmith argued that the case involves Shell's Nigerian subsidiary SPDC, which runs a joint venture with the Nigerian government.
Nigerian communities which rely on fishing have been hit particularly hard by the toxic spills [EPA]
He claimed that the case was aimed at establishing the High Court's jurisdiction over SPDC, opening the door for further claims.
Leigh Day had argued that Shell was "ultimately responsible for failing to ensure that its Nigerian subsidiary operates without causing environmental devastation".
"At the moment, these communities have no choice. They have to take them to court to get them to act," Leader said earlier.

Okpabi told the AFP news agency in November: "Shell is Nigeria and Nigeria is Shell".
"You can never, never defeat Shell in a Nigerian court.  The truth is that the Nigerian legal system is corrupt," he claimed.
Holding up a plastic bottle containing contaminated water from his community in Nigeria, the tribal king said:  "My people are drinking this water."
"There are strange diseases in my community - skin diseases, people are dying sudden deaths, some people are impotent, low sperm count," he added.  "I can afford to buy water.  But can I afford to buy for everybody? No."
SPDC claims that the main sources of pollution in Ogale and Bille are "crude oil theft, pipeline sabotage and illegal refining".   http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/01/high-court-blocks-nigeria-oil-spill-case-shell-170126132912975.html
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Bloody: Most Syrians are fleeing the perils of their home country where rebel-held towns like Ain Tarma (pictured) are shelled by the government and ISIS control vast parts of the nation