Ten people, including four children, have been killed in a stampede in Nigeria’s capital city as a large crowd gathered to collect food items distributed by a local church at a Christmas event, the police said on Saturday.

The stampede occurred in the early morning hours at the Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Maitama, a high-brow part of Abuja, from where more than 1,000 people have been evacuated, police spokesman Josephine Adeh said in a statement.

It is the second such stampede in a week in Africa’s most populous country as local organisations, churches and individuals are increasingly organising charity events ahead of Christmas amid the country’s worst cost-of-living crisis in a generation. (AP)