Participants in a demonstration in Trafalgar Square, London, to protest against the killing of 21 striking Nigerian miners in Enugu by colonial police.
The Enugu Coal Mine Massacre, also known as the Iva Valley Massacre, is a site in Enugu city, Enugu State, Nigeria. The name Ivy Valley comes from a valley in the region of the same name. The town is home to the Ivy Valley Coal Mine. Iva Valley is famous in Enugu for the events of November 18, 1949, when police killed 21 miners during protests.
On November 18, 1949, 50 armed policemen led by the senior police commissioner F.S Phillips arrived Iva Valley. In protest, the miners tied strips of red cloth to their helmets and, as was their custom, began dancing and singing in front of a crowd of armed police to boost morale. Philips thought the miners looked dangerous as they “performed a war dance” and began firing. 21 miners died, many of them shot in the back.
A massacre of unarmed Nigerian protesters, ordinary men who only demanded better working conditions and better wages, men who seemed to have been replaced by these disrespectful occupiers. It was the final straw that broke the camel’s back. The Iva Valley Coal Mine was opened in 1917 by the British colonial government of Nigeria after the Udi Mine in 1915, making it the second coal mine ever established in the city.