37 miners’ death: CSOs demand mining sector overhaul; illegal operations deepen, fuel revenue flight

By Luminous Jannamike & Gabriel Ewepu
ABUJA — The last thing many of the miners arrested around the Wushishi-Lukoto axis of Niger State could have expected when they were taken into custody was that some of them would not come out alive.
Read Also: Full List: 20 NSCDC officers suspended over 37 miners’ death; probe panel members
Between September 15 and 16, operatives of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, NSCDC, raided suspected illegal mining sites west of Minna and detained about 65 artisanal miners. 
By the early hours of September 17, dozens were dead inside an NSCDC detention facility along David Mark Road, Minna. Hospital footage showed 33 bodies in one ward. Th...