Market News

At least 13 protesters have been killed during mass protests in Nigeria over the country's economic crisis, a rights group confirmed Friday.

Security forces fired gunshots and used tear gas to quell mass protests across Nigeria on Thursday, as thousands of mainly young people rallied against the country's worst cost-of-living crisis for years.

Authorities confirmed four people were killed by a bomb and hundreds arrested.

Two people were killed in northern Niger state where protesters clashed with security forces after blocking a major road the local Daily Trust newspaper reported.

Amnesty International’s Nigeria director Isa Sanusi said that it independently verified the 13 deaths that were reported by witnesses, families of the victims and lawyers.

Increasing hardship

Protesters began demonstrating on Thursday in Abuja, the commercial capital Lagos and several other cities over economic reforms that have led to rampant inflation and inflicted increasing hardship on ordinary Nigerians.

"Citizens have come out because there is extreme hunger and abject poverty in the country," civil rights activist Taiwo Otitolaye told RFI. "Households don't have enough to live on. Families are taking their children out of school, so the first day of this movement is a good thing."

The "day of rage" saw youths demonstrating in the city of Maiduguri, the hotbed of a militant insurgency in the northeast of the country, in the face of a heavy security presence.

In Kano, the country's second-largest city, protesters set fire to tyres outside the state governor's office and police responded with tears gas.