At Djibi in the north of Ivory Coast’s biggest city, contaminated soil has been gathered into giant white bags that cover an area bigger than two tennis courts.

Three years after the ship Probo Koala had its cargo dumped in Abidjan, a thorough clean-up operation has yet to be carried out.

Warning signs mark the site, but the area is not closed off and several families live near by. More than 30,000 Ivorians who claim to have been harmed by the waste that they describe as toxic are still awaiting compensation.

Now, amid signs that the London-based oil trader Trafigura is about to reach an out-of-court settlement, the victims hope that they will finally be able to pay their medical bills.

The Ivorians are suing Trafigura for £100 million in a case that was due to come to court next month and would have been one of the UK’s biggest class actions. Several hundred tonnes of chemical waste from the oil industry was unloaded from a vessel chartered by Trafigura in the port of the West African city and dumped at about 15 sites around Abidjan by a local subcontractor, Tommy.

Trafigura said that it had handed over the waste in good faith — but Tommy had no experience of handing such waste: a toxic sulphurous sludge. The dumping sites included the principal landfill, the Banco National Park, the area around the prison and land close to several large slums.

Guy Oulla, a teacher in the district of Cocody, woke one night in August 2006 to a strong smell that he blames for his flu-like symptoms and vomiting. He and his family have been trying to win compensation ever since.

“We need the money to go to hospital and have all the check-up made on our bodies so that we can see what’s wrong with us,” said Mr Oulla, 41. “I felt a very strong pain in the stomach. I had fever and also I was vomiting and later on I was coughing. Most people had a similar thing — they couldn’t breathe and they had a cold and they had fever and coughing.”

The deal under discussion would give each claimant just over £1,000. Martyn Day, of the solicitors Leigh Day & Co, which brought the claim, said that the sum under discussion was “based on the range of short-term symptoms claimed by our clients”.

That angers Mavin Ouattara, head of the Union of Toxic Waste Victims. He told The Times that he welcomed any payment but not a deal that would mean agreeing that the dumping had caused only minimal short-term harm. “People like me with long-term illnesses will feel cheated if the deal concludes that the waste didn’t have any lasting effects,” he said.

A report this week by Okechukwu Ibeanu, the United Nations human rights rapporteur, said that there was “strong prima facie evidence” that 15 deaths were related to the dumping of the waste. Trafigura has consistently denied liability for the incident and described the report as “flawed”.

Yet internal e-mails leaked this week show that the company’s staff were aware of the hazardous nature of the waste. Trafigura said that the e-mails did not show that the company had done anything wrong.

Last night Lord Strathclyde, leader of Conservative Party in the Lords, announced, that he was severing his ties with Trafigura, where he is a non-executive director. “I’ve read today’s stories about Trafigura with concern and I am making inquiries about the situation,” he said.

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