Fifteen women and five children were on Monday trampled to death in a stampede for food and money by refugees in southeast Niger, a regional governor said.
The accident occurred at a youth and culture center in Diffa, the main town of a region of the same name that hosts more than a quarter of a million refugees and internally displaced people.
“Unfortunately, 15 women and five children died ... in this regrettable drama,” Diffa Governor Issa Lemine said on television after visiting the injured in hospital.
Aid workers confirmed the death toll and said about 10 people had been injured.
The region, which abuts Nigeria and Chad, has been repeatedly hit by attacks by Nigeria’s Boko Haram extremist group since 2015.
It hosts 119,000 Nigerian refugees, 109,000 internally displaced people and 30,000 Nigeriens who have come home from Nigeria because of the instability in its northeast, UN figures released in October last year showed.
The aid being distributed had been given by Babagana Umara Zulum, the governor of Borno state in northeast Nigeria, a Nigerian official said.
He had traveled to the region to visit camps for refugees and the displaced, and had already left the town when the stampede occurred.
A large amount of food, cooking oil and clothing, as well as money, was due to be distributed, a Diffa municipal worker said.
“Thousands of people were in the courtyard of the MJC [youth and culture center] and nearby,” he said.
“As soon as the first people received their rations, the compressed crowd started to get excited, the organizers were swiftly overwhelmed and then it all kicked off — women, children and the fit ones started to push,” the employee said.
“The weakest people fell to the ground. Some were injured and others were crushed to death,” he said.
A local resident said that aid workers were distributing 5,000 naira (US$13.75).
Lemine said a successful distribution had taken place on Sunday.
“Thousands of people, most of them refugees, heard about the handout and left the camps, sometimes traveling up to 100km to get to Diffa,” the source said.
A local official said that he was astonished at the situation.
“Normally, people who are entitled to the handouts send a representative to Diffa to pick it up, but this time, the refugees themselves decided to come and get it, traveling dozens of kilometers,” the official said.
“Even ordinary inhabitants of Diffa rushed there in the hope of getting the handout,” another resident said.
A local journalist said the emergency services arrived swiftly, taking wounded people to local treatment centers, while bodies were taken to the morgue of the nearby Diffa hospital.
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