Parts for sale

Nigeria: Kidneys sell for $10,000 as organ trafficking booms

By Akin Irede

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Posted on July 7, 2022 09:17

Health worker Victoria Fenuga stands in front of a sample storage refrigerator at a community hospital in Ogun state, Nigeria, March 24, 2021. REUTERS/Seun Sanni
Health worker Victoria Fenuga stands in front of a sample storage refrigerator at a community hospital in Ogun state, Nigeria, March 24, 2021. REUTERS/Seun Sanni

With unsafe skin bleaching and high rates of diabetes, hypertension and renal failure contributing to kidney disease among some 20 million Nigerians — one per cent of whom need urgent transplants — the country’s black market for kidneys, in particular, is booming.

Human beings only need one of their two to survive, making the bean-shaped body parts the most trafficked organs in the world. Nigeria has made unwanted international headlines as former Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu and his wife stand trial in London for alleged trafficking and illegal organ harvesting. The couple is accused of flying a teenage boy from Nigeria to donate a kidney to their daughter. Similar tales of desperation are common across the country.

When they got to India, the donor disappeared. Eventually my nephew returned home after we had been scammed. He died three weeks later

In an interview with The Africa Report, Joe Igbokwe, a Lagos engineer, recalled how his 50-year-old nephew died of kidney failure a few years ago despite the large sums of money his family raised to try and save his life. Igbokwe said his nephew, an only child, had been in contact with a

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