Following the religious clashes in Jos Nigeria, the few Hospitals available in the city are struggling to accommodate or cope with the dead bodies and fatally wounded victims at their disposal, reports claim.
Bodies are piled up at wards and emergency rooms are congested with patients awaiting immediate attention.
According to the co-coordinator of Oxfam, Francis Ayinzat, “Hospitals are running short of medical supplies, the nurses are overwhelmed, they can’t even efficiently attend to the wounded people who are being brought into the hospital.”
Some have also claimed that foreigners from neighboring Chad and Niger were involved in the clashes which claimed about 200 lives and left another hundred fatally wounded.
Violence flared on Friday amid claims that an election had been rigged.
Hundreds of people are seeking refuge in police stations and the local army barracks.
Churches and mosques were burnt down as mobs from the Muslim Hausa community and mainly Christian ethnic groups armed with machetes went on the rampage.
The city of Jos has experienced repeated bouts of inter-communal/religious violence, with more than 1,000 killed during riots in 2001 and several hundreds killed in 2004.
These clashes ensue because of competition for resources. The most powerful resource in Nigeria is a political office, given the fact that it gives the holder access to some of country’s huge oil revenues.
The Christian and Muslim communities in Jos have hardly agreed to share this resource amicably.
