Ibadan crush: The playing field where 35 children died in Nigeria

Bashorun residents told the BBC the crowd soon exceeded 5,000 with many attempting to force their way through the school gate. Parents are said to have tried to scale the fence surrounding the compound to gain access.

Within hours, pandemonium reportedly swept through the crowd and some of the children got knocked down in the ensuing frenzy.

One local, Olumide Adeniyi, turned up at 09:00 to see what was going on.

On his phone he recorded a bereft woman screaming that her child had died.

“I’m finished. Why did I even come here?” she cried while standing at the school gate.

“A man came to the carnival with two children. He told me one had died while the other was being treated in a nearby hospital for injuries,” Mr Adeniyi said.

The organisers are now in police custody. The police allege that they were not informed about the event and were not able to advise on the crowd control and safety measures.

But people here seem reluctant to point the finger of blame as they believe the funfair and the plan for the charity handouts were put together in good faith.

President Bola Tinubu has ordered an investigation.

“Our children’s safety and well-being remain paramount. No event should ever compromise their safety or take precedence over their lives,” he said.

But the poverty levels in Nigeria may mean that such events will happen again.

Food and transportation costs have more than tripled in Nigeria in the last 18 months. The global bout of inflation has been exacerbated by some of the policies of the government – designed to strengthen the economy in the long term – such as ending a fuel subsidy.

“People are suffering. It’s because of the situation of the country. It is the hunger that made them come out en masse like that,” Mr Adeniyi said.