At least 43 people have reportedly died after being exposed to toxic fumes while attempting to siphon petroleum products from a pipeline in Nigeria’s southern Rivers State.
The incident occurred around midnight on Thursday at Okari Jetty in the Okrika Local Government Area, where a vessel was reportedly loading petroleum products for export.
Residents said more than 200 youths from Okrika and nearby communities arrived in wooden boats and began collecting fuel from an illegal connection to a pipeline serving the facility.
Many were overcome by concentrated fumes as they transferred the product into their boats. Several lost consciousness, while others reportedly fell into the river and drowned.
Police spokesperson Blessing Agabe said an investigation was underway to determine the full scale and circumstances of the incident.
The Youths and Environmental Advocacy Centre, a Niger Delta-based environmental and human rights organisation, also reported multiple fatalities.
Its executive director, Fyneface Dumnamene Fyneface, said those involved had allegedly connected a pipe to a tapping point along a pipeline carrying petroleum products from the Indorama Eleme Petrochemicals area through the Port Harcourt refinery corridor to export vessels.
According to Fyneface, the product was travelling through the pipeline under high pressure as people simultaneously loaded it into waiting boats, exposing them to potentially lethal fumes.
He said bodies had been spotted floating in the river and that several people remained missing, raising fears that the death toll could increase.
The incident highlights the deadly consequences of illegal oil bunkering and petroleum theft in the Niger Delta, where security forces regularly target illegal refineries, pipeline tapping points and fuel-smuggling networks.
In April, Nigerian troops said they dismantled 10 illegal refining sites and arrested nine suspected oil thieves during operations in Rivers, Delta and Akwa Ibom states. They also recovered more than 130,000 litres of stolen crude oil and 26,000 litres of automotive gas oil.
The Nigerian Navy later announced that it had dismantled two additional illegal refining sites in Rivers State and recovered approximately 34,000 litres of suspected illegally refined automotive gas oil during an operation on August 28.
