At least 21 dead, 69 injured in school collapse

Mechanical excavators are working to try to rescue victims trapped under the rubble of this school in the centre of the country.

Tragedy struck the Saint Academy school in Jos, Nigeria. At least 21 people, mostly students, were killed and 69 injured on Friday, July 16, when the school building in the center of the country collapsed, the Red Cross reported. The injured were “all were admitted to various hospitals”Red Cross spokesman Nuruddeen Hussain Magaji told AFP.

Mechanical excavators are working to try to rescue victims trapped under the rubble while parents are desperately searching for their children, an AFP journalist at the scene noted.

UNICEF Nigeria representative Cristian Munduate said: “devastated by the tragic loss of young lives at Saint Academy”. “Children full of dreams were taking their exams when the school building collapsed. Our deepest condolences to the affected families”he specifies on X.

On his hospital bed, one of the injured students, Wulliya Ibrahim, 15, told AFP that he was “entered the class” and that’“just five minutes later”he has “heard a noise” before “find yourself here”The cause of the collapse has not been clearly established, but residents say it happened after three days of heavy rain.

Building collapses are quite common in Nigeria, due to lax enforcement of building standards, negligence and the use of poor quality materials. At least 45 people were killed in 2021 when a building under construction collapsed in the upscale Ikoyi area of ​​Lagos, Nigeria’s economic capital.