The ICRC and the Nigerian Red Cross Society bring the best
first-aid practices, based on the latest research, to communities
where basic emergency care and medical supplies are few and
FOUR YEARS AGO, 26-year-old Brian Azi Nyam was caught in
the crossfire when fighting broke out between communities
in the volatile city of Jos, Nigeria. He and his best friend
Nyam called out for help, but no one came. His friend died
on the street.
“I was lying down there, shouting, crying for help,” he
says. “Nobody. [I was] just looking. There was nothing
else to do. It was very painful.”
On his lunch break from Nigerian Red Cross Society first-aid
training, Nyam says if he had been trained then as a part
of an emergency rescue team, he might have been able to save
his friend’s life.
Since 2009, the ICRC and the Nigerian Red Cross have trained
2,755 community members like Nyam, in 105 locations across
Nigeria. Students learn basic life-saving skills so they
can respond when a bomb goes off or fighting breaks out between
Trainees from rural areas say they are also learning how
to respond to accidents where the hospitals are too far away
to save the lives of the victims.
The training also reflects a social dynamic that remains
elusive in much of northern Nigeria.
In the past decade, thousands have been killed in inter-communal
violence in this region. Jos residents say Christians are
still afraid to go into Muslim neighbourhoods, while Muslims
still fear Christian neighbourhoods. At the training sessions,
Christians, Muslims and competing ethnicities study in the
same classes and students are instructed to give their rivals
the same care as their friends.
“Both the Christians and the Muslims are one here,” student
Victoria John says on her third day of training. “We
are not even sure that this is a Christian or this is a Muslim,” she
adds, referring to a victim she may one day help. “I
will not treat this one? No. We take everybody along as one.”
The violence in Nigeria appears religious because it is
often Christians and Muslims who are fighting, but the root
of the problem is a complex combination of political,
socio-economic and ideological disputes. In Jos, which is
located in a northern, central region known as the “Middle
Belt”, more than 1,000 people have died in sectarian
clashes over the past two years, according to Human Rights
Community leaders select first-aid students to represent
a cross section of the area they come from. Training students
from rival groups together also helps the Nigerian Red Cross
and the ICRC maintain their neutrality, by not favouring
one group over another.
Nigerian Red Cross trainer Ghali Bashir Adam says simple
techniques, like teaching students to ensure their own safety
and open the airways of unconscious victims, are the most
important elements of this training. With limited resources
available, students are taught the many ways a piece of cloth
can be used for emergency treatment, like for tying a spinal
cord victim to a board to immobilize them to prevent further
injury. A person who is bleeding excessively can be helped
by applying compression to the wound and then giving them
a drink of water, Adam explains.
Trainers also regularly take new courses to hone their skills
and learn the latest first-aid techniques. Updating these
techniques often involves simplifying them so they can be
performed skilfully under intense pressure, says Adam. New
scientific research also adds to the first aiders’ repertoire,
like the recent discovery that adult victims found not breathing
often still have oxygen in their hearts and can be helped
with immediate compressions.
Beyond first-aid training, Adam says making various religious
and ethnic groups work as a team gives participants an outlook
that cannot be taught in a lecture.
“This particular training contributes a lot in uniting
the communities that experienced violence,” he says
outside a quiet clinic located near a military checkpoint
that is set up to separate Muslims from Christians if fighting
erupts. “It helps in the reconciliation.”
Emergency responders in the field say students aspire to
be impartial while giving care, but it’s not always
easy. Impartiality is an ongoing process, because although
they may not have favourites, the world around them does.
Friday Apuwa Danlad has been a Nigerian Red Cross volunteer
for more than 12 years and was among the first on the scene
for at least 18 bomb blasts, accidents and sectarian clashes.
Like other volunteers, Danlad says he responds to injuries
and stays out of the conflict. But at the scene of a bombing,
or in a neighbourhood that has been marred by sectarian violence,
he is often recognized by his Christian appearance, not the
emblem on his red vest.
If Danlad has to transport a Muslim victim to a hospital
close to home, he asks Muslim colleagues to carry the victim.
He will also take over from Muslim colleagues who could put
themselves in harm’s way by transporting a victim into
a Christian neighbourhood.
During a conflict, rescue workers say they are often accused
of helping one side over the other. According to Danlad,
community-based training alone helps raise the profile of
the Nigerian Red Cross, making missions safer and potentially
“We need awareness — both [in] Christian and
Muslims societies — about the purpose of the Red Cross,” he
says. “So that when there is an emergency situation,
we the Red Cross should not be at risk.” At the training
centres, students emphasize that not all emergency needs
in Nigeria are associated with conflict. Like many countries
in Africa, Nigeria is short of doctors and hospitals, and
injured people often have to travel long distances to receive
any kind of help.
A 23-year-old accounting student, Sani Garba Maren is a
first-aid trainee in a village outside of Jos. When his neighbour’s
house caught fire, the children — a boy and a girl — were
badly burnt and were rushed to the hospital in a car. The
little girl died before could get treatment.
Like Nyam, who mourns the loss of his best friend, Maren
wonders if he could have saved her life. “Now that
they have showed us how to take care of burning skin,” he
says, “if anything happens like a house burning, I
can go with my small, small materials to help.”
By Heather Murdock
Heather Murdock is a freelance journalist based in Abuja, Nigeria.