Toxic petroleum fumes killed at least 37 people during an alleged oil theft at Okari Jetty, an environmental advocacy group said, in an incident that began at about midnight on Thursday, September 3, 2026, in the Okrika Local Government Area of Nigeria’s Rivers State.
The dead are suspected to have been involved in illegal oil bunkering, the Youths and Environmental Advocacy Centre (YEAC-Nigeria) said. Its executive director, Fyneface Dumnamene Fyneface, said volunteers and human rights defenders who work with YEAC-Nigeria in the Niger Delta had documented no fewer than 37 deaths, all of them after the victims breathed in a product known locally as “Indorama fuel.”
That product is refined petrol, a grade of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS). The Indorama Eleme Petrochemical Company feeds it into a pipeline that runs through the Port Harcourt Refinery and on to ships, which berth roughly every two weeks to take on cargo for export. A tapping point on that same line had been fitted with a pipe by the victims, Fyneface said, and they were loading the fuel into their boats when they inhaled it at high pressure as it was pumped.
What Happened at Okari Jetty
The crowd arrived in locally made boats while a ship sat at the jetty taking on petroleum products bound for export. Community sources put the number at more than 200 young men from Okrika and neighboring communities; another account put the gathering at more than 100 people.
Loading continued while the young men scooped from the illegal tap, and the smell of the fuel turned sharp and overpowering. Many collapsed where they stood after breathing the fumes at high pressure, witnesses said, and some fell into the river. Medical teams were attending to others who got away and were taken to hospitals with severe respiratory complications.
Bodies Still Surfacing in the River
Bodies Still Surfacing in the River
Fumes coming off the vessel as it was being loaded overwhelmed the men, who had gone there to collect petroleum products drifting on the water, said Igwe Godswill, commander of the Civilian Joint Task Force (JTF) in the Okrika Local Government Area.
“These are not criminals or anything, but they went out in search of their daily meal,” Godswill said.
He put the number of bodies recovered by the time he spoke at about 10 — four of them identified, four unrecognizable and the rest impossible to identify because the remains were badly damaged. A community source identified 37 of the dead as Okrika indigenes and said six more bodies were unidentified. As of September 8, the report carrying those figures was headlined “Oil theft: 43 suspects choke to death in Okrika Jetty disaster,” using the community tally of 43 rather than the toll of at least 37 given by YEAC-Nigeria.
Many people remain unaccounted for. Some of the dead had been spotted in the water but not retrieved, Fyneface said, and community sources reported corpses still surfacing in the river. The search for the missing is continuing, according to authorities.
Police Confirm Deaths, Open Inquiry
Nigerian police confirmed the incident on Friday, September 4, giving no death toll and saying an investigation was underway. Deaths had occurred while the men were allegedly attempting to steal crude oil, according to ASP Blessing Kaborlo Agabe, spokesperson for the Rivers State Police Command, who said an “investigation is ongoing to establish the circumstances surrounding the incident and ascertain the facts.”
No official complaint had been lodged with the command, Agabe said, adding that officers had begun work to establish how many people died and the circumstances surrounding the deaths.
Group Says Security Agencies Deny the Deaths
An organization called LightHope Succor Worldwide Initiative said on September 4 that the Nigeria Police Force, Nigerian Navy and Nigerian Army had denied that 37 people died from inhaling toxic fumes at Okari Jetty, and that the security authorities “confirmed that no such incident occurred at the jetty on the date in question.” The group’s statement, signed by its spokesperson, Evelyn Williams, added: “The information obtained from the relevant security authorities instead indicates that the report is fake news and without credible factual basis.”
As of September 5, the same organization was urging the originators of the death-toll report to provide verifiable evidence and calling on media organizations to carry out editorial checks before reproducing mass-casualty claims. Its findings, the group said, “should not be interpreted as a dismissal of the environmental and security challenges associated with oil theft, pipeline vandalism and related activities in the Niger Delta.”
Calls for Jobs and Pipeline Security
A Joint Investigation Visit to the site should be carried out without delay by the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA), YEAC-Nigeria said, and the group called on the operator whose pipeline was reportedly vandalized to tighten security around its facilities so the disaster is not repeated. Fyneface warned young people to keep away from oil and gas infrastructure, citing the dangers involved.
Alternative livelihoods across the region were another of the group’s demands: modular refineries, the legalization of artisanal refining, the proposed Presidential Artisanal Crude Oil Refining Development Initiative (PACORDI) and a Niger Delta Industrial Park.
Godswill echoed that appeal, calling on community leaders, the Rivers State Government and other authorities to put young people in the area into jobs. Force alone will not stop the practice, he said, because residents will keep returning to the tapping point for as long as it remains their only source of income. People went back to the site even after the deaths there had been confirmed, he said.
Across the Niger Delta, oil thieves have operated widely for years. Nigeria stands as Africa’s biggest oil producer, and the delta’s decades of exploration have left deep poverty behind, along with land and water that are badly degraded. Reports widely put the cost of stolen oil to the country at billions of dollars a year, and operations against the trade by the Nigerian military and navy have increased in recent years.
