At least 37 people died after inhaling toxic petroleum fumes during an alleged oil theft at Okari Jetty in the Okrika Local Government Area of Nigeria’s Rivers State, an environmental advocacy group said, in an incident that unfolded at about midnight on Thursday, September 3, 2026.
The Youths and Environmental Advocacy Centre (YEAC-Nigeria) said the dead are suspected to have been involved in illegal oil bunkering. Its executive director, Fyneface Dumnamene Fyneface, said volunteers and human rights defenders working with the group across the Niger Delta had documented no fewer than 37 deaths after the victims breathed in a product known locally as “Indorama fuel.”
That product is refined petrol, a grade of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), carried by a pipeline that runs from the Indorama Eleme Petrochemical Company through the Port Harcourt Refinery and out to ships that berth roughly every two weeks to take on cargo for export. Fyneface said the victims had connected a pipe to a tapping point on that line and inhaled the fuel at high pressure as it was pumped, while they simultaneously loaded it into their boats.
What Happened at Okari Jetty
A ship had berthed at the jetty and was taking on petroleum products bound for export when the crowd arrived in locally made boats. Community sources put the number at more than 200 young men from Okrika and neighboring communities, while another account described more than 100 people gathered at the site.
The smell of the fuel turned sharp and overpowering as the vessel took on cargo and the young men scooped from the illegal tap. Witnesses said many of them collapsed where they stood after breathing the fumes at high pressure, and some fell into the river. Others who got away were taken to hospitals with severe respiratory complications, where medical teams were attending to them.
Bodies Still in the River
Igwe Godswill, commander of the Civilian Joint Task Force (JTF) in the Okrika Local Government Area, said those who died had come to collect petroleum products drifting on the water and were overwhelmed by the fumes coming off the vessel being loaded.
“These are not criminals or anything, but they went out in search of their daily meal,” Godswill said.
About 10 bodies had been recovered by the time he spoke, he said. Four of those had been identified and four were unrecognizable, with the remainder impossible to identify because the remains were badly damaged. A community source said 37 of the dead were identified as Okrika indigenes and six more bodies were unidentified — a community tally of 43 that has appeared in some Nigerian reporting, higher than the confirmed figure of 37.
Many people remain unaccounted for. Fyneface said some of the dead had been spotted in the water but had not been retrieved, and community sources said corpses were still surfacing in the river. Authorities say the search for the missing is continuing.
Police Confirm Deaths, Open Inquiry
Nigerian police confirmed the incident on Friday, September 4, but gave no death toll and said an investigation was underway. Blessing Agabe, spokesperson for the Rivers State Police Command, confirmed that people had died while allegedly attempting to steal crude oil, and said an “investigation is ongoing to establish the circumstances surrounding the incident and ascertain the facts.”
Agabe said no official complaint had been lodged with the command, and that officers had begun work to establish how many people died and the circumstances surrounding the deaths.
Calls for Jobs and Pipeline Security
YEAC-Nigeria asked the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA) to conduct a Joint Investigation Visit to the site without delay, and pressed the operator whose pipeline was reportedly vandalized to tighten security around its facilities to prevent a repeat. Fyneface warned young people to keep away from oil and gas infrastructure because of the dangers involved.
The group also pressed for alternative livelihoods in the region, including modular refineries, the legalization of artisanal refining, the proposed Presidential Artisanal Crude Oil Refining Development Initiative (PACORDI) and a Niger Delta Industrial Park.
Godswill made a similar appeal, asking the Rivers State Government, community leaders and other authorities to create employment for young people in the area. Stopping the practice by force alone would not work, he said, because residents would keep returning to the tapping point as long as it remained their only source of income. He said people went back to the site even after the deaths there had been confirmed.
Oil theft has long been widespread across the Niger Delta. Nigeria ranks as Africa’s biggest oil producer, and decades of exploration in the delta have left behind deep poverty and badly degraded land and water. Stolen oil is widely reported to cost the country billions of dollars a year, and the Nigerian military and navy have stepped up operations against the trade in recent years.
As of the police statement on Friday, September 4, authorities had issued no official death toll of their own and said only that the inquiry into what happened at Okari Jetty was continuing.