Dr Golwa Philimon was just emerging from church when he received the phone call. He was told that fighting had broken out and that he should come in urgently to the Plateau State Specialist Hospital, where he worked. 'Doctor, just come, there are massive casualties,' said the voice at the other end of the line.
For the next four days Dr Golwa worked without respite, hardly sleeping at all and taking meals on the move. The wards filled up amd desperately injured victims silled onto the floors of the corridors outside. As he tried to patch-up the injured, he could hear the click clivk click of machine gun fire and smell the smoke from burning houses. There were grave fears that the mob might descend on the hospital.
At first, said Dr Golwa, the victims mostly came in with machete wounds. Then, after around 12 hours, as the security forces moved in, the gunshot wounds began to arrive. By the end of the rioting, say Dr Golwa, there had been about 180 fatalities.
Forty-three years old, Dr Golway is married with two childreN. He spent eight years working at the Beijing Neurological Institute before moving to Jos.
Although shaken, Dr Golwa and the other doctors and nurses at the Plateau State hospital behaved with superb professionalism during the crisis amd are among the unsung heroes of the tragedy.
