Police opened fire as protesters took to the streets of a city in central Nigeria on Friday, a day after 37 suspected illegal gold miners died while in the custody of a paramilitary civil defense group, witnesses said.
It was not immediately clear whether police were firing anti-riot pellets or live rounds to disperse the crowds in Minna, the capital of Niger State.
Nigeria’s government said it had suspended a civil defense commander and ordered a “full investigation” over Thursday’s deaths.
Niger state, which is more than twice the size of Belgium, is rich in minerals and attracts thousands of artisanal miners -- most of them lured by the hope of striking gold.
Crowds barricaded a main road in the part of the city where most of the miners came from on Friday, with witnesses reporting panic among residents.
“The city has been tense,” said Hassan Usman, a resident of Tunga, the district where the dead miners were detained.
“The youth in Tunga went on a rampage and attacked the Niger State Transport Authority office, where they smashed buses.”
A video seen by AFP showed police firing towards the mob along a deserted highway.
“Parents hurriedly picked up their children from school before closing time for fear of breakdown of law and order,” said another resident, Abubakar Idris.
The interior ministry said it had suspended Suberu Siyaka Aniviye, the state commander of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defense Corps (NSCDC), while the incident is investigated.
The NSCDC is a paramilitary group that works with police.
“It is an unfortunate incident, however, a full investigation will be conducted while the commandant under whose watch this happened remains suspended,” Interior Minister Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo said in a statement.
An intelligence report seen by AFP claimed that groups of miners and sympathizers came out to protest.
The report suggested the 37 died as a result of overcrowding and poor ventilation in the detention facility, though the civil defense initially blamed the deaths on disease.
A 40-second video shared online purporting to show the victims of Thursday’s incident showed bodies of dozens of young men clad only in shorts.
Most of them appeared to be teenagers and were sprawled on the ground out in the open.
Police have also launched an investigation.
The scramble for gold reserves dug up in illegal mines in Niger state is fueling violence by criminal gangs, known locally as bandits, according to officials and experts.
The gangs tax the miners and demand a cut from the extracted ore as a levy to allow them access to the pits.
Most of the illegally mined gold is smuggled out to the United Arab Emirates, from where it is laundered into the global supply chain in Europe, the United States, Asia and South Africa, according to a 2024 SwissAid report.