Chinedu Assad, Associated Press Published Saturday, May 28, 2022, 2:42 PM EDT Last Updated, Saturday, May 28, 2022, 5:24 PM EDT
ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) – A move to a church charity event in southern Nigeria on Saturday killed 31 people and injured seven, police told the Associated Press, a shocking development of a program aimed at offering hope to those in need. One witness said a pregnant woman and many children were among the dead.
The event, organized by the Kings Assembly’s Pentecostal Church in Rivers Pentecostal, includes people who came to the church’s annual charity program, Shop for Free, according to police spokeswoman Grace Eyring-Coco.
Such events are common in Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy, where more than 80 million people live in poverty, according to government statistics.
Saturday’s charity program was scheduled to begin at 9 a.m., but dozens arrived as early as 5 a.m. to secure their place in the queue, Iringe-Coco said. Somehow the locked gate was broken, creating a crash, she said.
Godwin Tepicor of the National Emergency Management Agency of Nigeria said first aid workers had managed to evacuate the bodies of the trampled to death and take them to the morgue. Security forces cordoned off the area.
Dozens of residents later crowded the area, mourning the dead and offering all possible help to emergency workers. Doctors and emergency workers treated some of the wounded while lying outdoors. Videos from the scene show clothes, shoes and other items intended for the beneficiaries.
One witness, who identified himself as Daniel, said “there were so many children” among the dead. Five of the dead children are from a mother, he told the AP, adding that a pregnant woman also lost her life.
Some church members were attacked and injured by relatives of the victims after the collision, according to witness Christopher Ez. The church declined to comment on the situation.
A police spokesman said the seven wounded were “responding to treatment”.
The “Shop for Free” event was halted while authorities investigated the collision.
Nigeria has seen similar clashes in the past.
Twenty-four people died in a crowded church gathering in the southeastern state of Anambra in 2013, while at least 16 people were killed in 2014 when the mob went out of control during a screening for government positions in the nation’s capital, Abuja.
Associated Press journalist Hilary Uguru of Vari, Nigeria, contributed.
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