Nigerian police have opened an investigation into the deaths of 37 people held in custody after being arrested for illegal mining, in a case where the official explanation and a survivor’s account point in opposite directions.
The men were detained during an operation targeting illegal mining on Tuesday and Wednesday in Niger State, in the country’s north, a region known for small-scale gold mining. Suberu Siyaka Aniviye, head of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) in the state, said so in a statement.
Disease, or suffocation
Officials said on Thursday they suspect an outbreak of disease caused the deaths. Aniviye said the bodies had been sent for “further medical examination to establish the actual cause of death,” and did not say what disease was suspected.
An intelligence report cited by the AFP news agency suggested a different cause: overcrowding and poor ventilation inside the NSCDC detention facility.
A survivor, Dauda Shehu, told the Associated Press that 65 detainees were packed into a single poorly ventilated cell — an account that points to suffocation rather than illness.
“We were jam-packed and there was no ventilation for us to breathe well,” Shehu said. “All of a sudden, we realised that we could not breathe and we started scrambling to get fresh air.”
Speaking at Minna General Hospital, where the bodies were taken for examination, Shehu said the detainees had tried to attract the guards’ attention by banging on the cell door.
Mourning, protests, a suspension
Niger State Governor Mohammed Umaru Bago announced three days of mourning, calling the deaths “sad and tragic.”
Protests broke out on Thursday evening and police responded by firing tear gas. Local outlets reported that Aniviye, the NSCDC commander who issued the official statement, has been suspended.
Investigators have asked relatives of the victims to come forward with any information that could assist.
A note on the sourcing
Both the Daily Mirror and Hiru News carried this story in Sri Lanka on Friday, and both credit Al Jazeera. The two texts are identical. This is one report relayed twice, not two independent accounts — and Al Jazeera’s own report is in turn built on AFP and AP material.
Neither Sri Lankan outlet adds reporting of its own. Neither says how many of the 65 men in the cell survived, how long the detainees were held before the deaths were discovered, whether any were charged, or whether the NSCDC facility had been the subject of prior complaints. Neither gives the ages or names of the dead beyond the survivor quoted, or says who is conducting the investigation into a detention facility run by a federal security agency.
