Nigeria cash handout stampede kills at least 3, medic says

A stampede during a cash handout in central Nigeria killed at least three women, a paramedic at state-run Minna General Hospital said Wednesday.

Thousands of people had gathered late Tuesday at the official residence of Niger state governor Mohammed Umaru Bago for a giveaway of 10,000 naira, about $7.50, per person.

"Six injured victims were brought along with three dead bodies," the paramedic said. "All the dead bodies were women." The paramedic asked not to be identified for fear of sanction.

A security report prepared for the UN gave a higher toll of five dead. Police spokesman Yusuf Abubakar Bawa said authorities were still gathering details.

The UN security report said the cash distribution was organised in part to stop a planned protest over the deaths of 37 artisanal miners in state custody two weeks earlier. The miners suffocated in a crowded, poorly ventilated cell, according to the report.

Nigeria has faced severe economic hardship since 2023, when the government removed a major petrol subsidy and floated the naira. Inflation rose above 30 percent at the height of the cost-of-living crisis and was just above 15 percent in August.

Deadly stampedes during cash or food distributions have occurred repeatedly in Nigeria. In December 2024, 35 children were killed in a crush at a Christmas fair in Ibadan. In March 2024, 17 women died during a cash distribution in Bauchi state, days after two students died in another crush on a university campus in Nasarawa state.