Floods sweep away 1,500 corpses from cemetery in northern Nigeria

By Ibrahim Garba Shuaibu

KANO, Nigeria (AA) - Around 1,500 corpses have been swept away by floods from a cemetery in northern Nigeria, an official said Wednesday.

The governor of Niger state, Abubakar Sani Bello, confirmed the news, saying a nearby river was littered with corpses.

The floods followed days of rains in the area and other neighborhoods and affected the 60-year-old cemetery in the town of Mariga.

According to Bello, the incident occurred as a result of the River Mariga overflowing its banks and washing away some of the graves in the area.

Bello confirmed that the cemetery is located near a river and that the activities of illegal miners exposed it to this disaster.

He said rescue workers have been deployed in the town to recover the bodies and rebury them at safer locations.

"It's true there was flooding that washed away some parts of the cemetery, and part of the area is also used by illegal miners for digging pits which contributed to the washing away of the graves,” he added.

Aliyu Muhammad, a resident of Mariga, told Anadolu Agency by phone that they recovered over 650 corpses and reburied them.

"It’s a terrible situation here in Mariga, but the bodies of (some of) the dead have been recovered and we were able to relocate them to a safer graveyard.

"The situation affected almost 2,000 graves in this community, and most of those washed away were buried in the last three to four months," he added.

The Director General of the State Emergency Management Agency, Ahmed Inga Ibrahim, confirmed that the decomposed bodies have been reclothed and buried.

"I was there with government officials, including the commissioner of works, and it is true that dead bodies were washed away," Ibrahim said.

He also reaffirmed that the recovery of corpses is still ongoing.