{"id":941420,"date":"2026-05-06T11:24:37","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T11:24:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/941420\/"},"modified":"2026-05-06T11:24:37","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T11:24:37","slug":"students-attack-hospital-over-poor-care-for-crash-victims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/941420\/","title":{"rendered":"Students attack hospital over \u2018poor care\u2019 for crash victims"},"content":{"rendered":"

A video circulating online on Monday shows students of the University of Cross River State (UNICROSS) protesting in Calabar, with some vandalising hospital property.<\/p>\n

The protest followed allegations of poor medical care for six UNICROSS students injured in a fatal road crash along the Calabar\u2013Itu Highway last weekend.<\/p>\n

PREMIUM TIMES reported<\/a><\/strong> that the crash claimed four lives.<\/p>\n

The injured students were taken to different health facilities, including a General Hospital in Calabar.<\/p>\n

In the video<\/a><\/strong> seen by PREMIUM TIMES, some protesters were destroying a hospital bus, smashing windows, pulling down the facility\u2019s signpost and disrupting activities within the hospital premises.<\/p>\n

\"PT<\/a><\/p>\n

Another video<\/a><\/strong> showed the protesters moving towards the Government House, where gunshots were heard in the background, although the circumstances surrounding the gunfire remain unclear.<\/p>\n

Attempts to reach the Cross River State Commissioner for Health, Egbe Ayuk, were unsuccessful as calls to his phone line were not going through.<\/p>\n

The hospital\u2019s General Superintendent, Kenneth Takim, referred our reporter to the Director of Nursing Services, Oguji Fabian.<\/p>\n

Ms Fabian said the hospital promptly attended to the injured students and recorded no deaths.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey met one nurse manning the emergency unit. You know the state of employment in Nigeria. The nurse was overwhelmed by the number of students that came in and the number of casualties brought in,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were not dead but wounded. As the nurse stepped out to call us to mobilise more staff who were still within the facility, some students began to complain they were not being attended to.\u201d<\/p>\n

She added that the situation escalated shortly after.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was when they started to move the vehicle. By the time we came out, the first batch had left while another set was arriving, and we immediately began attending to them,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Ms Fabian said none of the injured students died at the hospital.<\/p>\n

\u201cSix of the casualties were transferred to the teaching hospital with our ambulance by the General Superintendent. The others were treated and discharged. None of them died in the general hospital,\u201d she said, adding that the fatalities recorded occurred at the scene of the accident.<\/p>\n

Police deny shooting protesters<\/strong><\/p>\n

In a statement, the police spokesperson in Cross River, Eitokpah Sunday, said claims that officers shot at protesters were false.<\/p>\n

Mr Sunday, an assistant superintendent of police, said the protest, which began peacefully, later turned violent, with some students vandalising hospital property, including an ambulance, windows and signposts.<\/p>\n

He said officers deployed to the scene exercised restraint and adopted non-lethal measures to manage the crowd.<\/p>\n

READ ALSO:\u00a0River of Death: Inside Niger communities where accessing healthcare becomes fatal<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

The statement also stated that protesters later moved to the Government House, where security personnel used smoke canisters to disperse the crowd after some protesters attempted to force entry into the premises.<\/p>\n

The police said no fatalities were recorded during the protest.<\/p>\n

According to the statement, calm was restored after government officials, including the Deputy Governor, Peter Odey, engaged with student representatives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A video circulating online on Monday shows students of the University of Cross River State (UNICROSS) protesting in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":941421,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4316],"tags":[100199,262952,105,4348,1867,12,3007,2578,262953,16,262954,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-941420","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-cross-river","9":"tag-eitokpah-sunday","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-healthcare","12":"tag-hospital","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-nigeria","15":"tag-premium-times","16":"tag-students-protest","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-unicross","19":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116527384851323223","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/941420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=941420"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/941420\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/941421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=941420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=941420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=941420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}