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Enugu: Stampedes during a recruitment process by the Nigerian immigration service killed at least 30 job seekers and injured scores more as unemployed youths rushed at locked gates, witnesses said on Monday.
Witnesses said there were stampedes at recruitment centres in the 36 state capitals on Saturday. Some also died during an endurance test that required applicants to run up to three kilometres in sweltering rainy season heat to determine their fitness.
"When we got to the gate, it was locked so we began to force it open...There was a rush and a stampede as a result of which about nine people died," said Obinna Agwu, an applicant in southeast Enugu state.
Five applicants died in neighbouring Anambra state, and seven in Abia, while nine others died in northwestern Kaduna state, witnesses said.
Local media reports said four died in Asaba, capital of the southern oil-producing state of Delta.
The immigration service was seeking to recruit just over a thousand people but more than 100,000 applicants turned up for the process, media reports said.
"Some of the people who died had already been screened out but they insisted on their own to take part in the strenous exercise so that they may be reconsidered," said Kayode Ayo, comptroller of immigration in Anambra state .
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