By Pascal Ibe 

Claim

Nigeria’s Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Nentawe Yilwatda, has claimed that food queue stampedes were not only limited to Nigeria but have been recorded in advanced parts of the world like the United States.

Verdict

This claim is FALSE. The food stampede which the minister claimed happened during the Hurricane Katrina incident in the United States in 2005, cannot be verified anywhere. The other one he claimed took place in Houston Texas in 2021, was not related to the food distribution stampede 

Full Text

The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management, and Social Development, Nentawe Yilwatda, on December 31, blamed the poor organization for the food queue stampedes recorded in parts of Nigeria during the 2024 Yuletide season.

The minister claimed that food queue stampedes were not only limited to Nigeria but have been recorded in advanced parts of the world like the United States.

“Stampedes have taken place in more developed countries than Nigeria,” the minister said.

“If you recall, Hurricane Katrina in the US, when they had food distribution because of poor organization, they had stampede.

This claim was published by another media organizations here.

Background.

In December 2024, stampedes at three Christmas charity events across Nigeria have tragically left at least 67 people dead in the past week, many of them children.

At least 35 children were killed in southwestern Oyo state on Wednesday. And on Saturday, 22 people died in south-eastern Anambra state while 10 died in the capital, Abuja, where more than 1,000 people had gathered at a church to receive clothes and food.

The economic crisis is blamed on the government’s policies to save money and attract investors, which have contributed to pushing the inflation rate to a 28-year high of 34.6%. Meanwhile, the naira currency languishes at record lows against the dollar.

Verification 

Verifying this claim by Nigeria’s minister, first, a thorough search by FACTWATCH Nigeria showed that there’s no stampede as a result of food distribution in the United at any time in history.

Further checks indicated that the food stampede which the minister claimed happened during the Hurricane Katrina incident in the United States in 2005, cannot be verified anywhere.

According to the US online education magazine Britannica, Hurricane Katrina was a tropical cyclone that struck the southeastern United States in late August 2005.

The largest loss of life in Hurricane Katrina was due to flooding caused by engineering flaws in the flood protection system, particularly the levees around the city of New Orleans. 80% of the city, as well as large areas in neighboring parishes, were flooded for weeks. 

There’s no way this was linked to any sort of food distribution stampede in the US.

Also, the last recent stampede that occurred in the United States on 6tg November 2021, happened when fans surged toward the stage during rapper Travis Scott’s Astroworld music festival in Houston, killing at least eight people and injuring dozens.

The disaster unfolded at NRG Park during the headline performance by Scott, a Grammy-nominated singer and producer, following what police and members of the crowd described as an escalation of unruly behavior throughout the day.

As fans in the sold-out audience of about 50,000 pressed toward the stage, people began to fall unconscious, some suffering cardiac arrest or other medical issues, officials told reporters outside the venue.

This incident was not also caused by food distribution as the Nigerian minister claimed.

Conclusion

Nigerian minister linked two US incidents to food distribution stampede, which is never true as this claim is FALSE.