“We Drank Urine….We Watched Our Colleagues Die” – Survivor Recounts Horror As 37 Die In Niger NSCDC Cell
It was not a disease that killed them first, it was thirst, heat and helplessness.
According to Daily Trust report, Dauda Shehu is lying on a hospital bed in Minna, one of seven survivors admitted to the emergency unit of the General Hospital. He was among 66 young men packed into a single detention cell at the Niger State Command of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps after arrests on September 15 and 16 at M.I. Wushishi Housing Estate and Lukoto village.
“Sixty-six of us were put in one cell. Six people are currently on admission. They did not torture us, but there was excessive heat. We complained that the cell was too small to accommodate all of us, but they did not listen to us,” Dauda said.
“We watched our colleagues die, and even when we raised the alarm, they thought we were lying. We drank urine because we couldn’t access water due to heat. Some people died in the night while others died in the morning on Thursday.”
The 37 who died were not strangers to hardship. Many were internally displaced persons from Shiroro Local Government Area who had fled banditry to Minna and turned to artisanal mining to survive. For them, mining was not a crime but a family duty.
Mallam Abdullahi, a bereaved father, said his son supported the entire family with his daily hustle. He went to the NSCDC headquarters to plead for his release and was told to bring N500,000 for bail. He went home to find food to take to him Wednesday night, and returned Thursday morning with breakfast, only to be shown his corpse.
“We took food to him last night. We went this morning to give him breakfast and found him dead. I saw his dead body,” he said. “My son is not a criminal. He is into mining because there is no work to do.”
Another family is mourning 17-year-old Salim, described by his elder brother Babawo Tudun-Natsira as a quiet boy who wanted to help his mother. Like many others, his body was laid on the floor of the mortuary before being released to his family for a proper burial, after hospital management initially refused to accept the bodies brought in two ambulances from the NSCDC command.
In the midst of grief, the warmth of Minna showed. Parents and relatives who gathered at the mortuary held each other, prayed together, and carried their sons home on their shoulders. Residents of Maitumbi, Tudun Natsira, Berger and Tunga blocked the Flamingo Junction in protest, not for violence, but to demand that their children’s lives be counted.
Governor Mohammed Umaru Bago has confirmed 37 deaths and ordered the suspension of State Commandant Suberu Aniviye, while the NSCDC and Police have launched investigations. But for the families, the story is no longer about illegal mining — it is about 37 young breadwinners who went out to feed their families and never returned.
