Thirty-two people died after being held in a poorly ventilated cell by a banned vigilante group, sparking a riot in the southeastern Nigerian market town of Aba, police said on Saturday. The 32 were among more than 100 people detained in a windowless market shop on Thursday by a group known as the "Bakassi Boys". A riot erupted when traders found their bodies in a heap at the market on Friday, police said. The Bakassi Boys are one of more than a dozen vigilante groups set up in 2001 by some state governors to fight crime after the Nigerian Police Force said it was unable to check the rising wave of armed robberies in Africa's most populous nation. "They detained over 100 people unlawfully in a lockup stall inside the market on Thursday, by yesterday 32 of them had given up the ghost," Area Police Commander Saleh Tanko told Reuters. "The Bakassi Boys then freed those who were still alive and abandoned the dead bodies and fled," Tanko said by phone from Aba, 150 km south of Enugu. "When traders resumed in the morning and saw the gory sight, they raised an alarm that sparked a riot." He said riot police were deployed to promptly contain the situation, adding that the group's kingpin has been arrested.
