February 4, 2002	Monday	Ziqa’ad 20, 1422

LAGOS, Feb 3: At least 21 people have been killed in violent clashes between members of two ethnic groups in a working-class district of Nigeria’s main city of Lagos, hospital workers said on Sunday.

A correspondent saw six bodies being brought into the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), and hospital workers said that at least 15 bodies had been brought in earlier, though other witnesses put the toll still higher.

“It could be more, but the toll is at least 15 from what we have seen,” said Femi Anjorin, a hospital worker. The final figure was expected to rise.

The fighting erupted on Saturday between gang members of the ethnic Yoruba and Hausa communities in the Mushin district of Lagos.

Skirmishes that had died down overnight flared again on Sunday. Volunteers of the Nigerian Red Cross were present, going from door to door seeking to bring the injured to hospital.

Red Cross spokesman Patrick Bawa said scores of people had been injured in the clashes but declined to comment on the number of dead.

A group of around 100 terrified people had set up home in the grounds of the LUTH, carrying their belongings.

Beatrice Ugorji, a market trader of the Igbo ethnic community, said she and her family had been caught up in the violence.

“Our house has been burned. The Hausas kept coming back to say we should leave or we will be killed so we have left and come here,” she said, sitting in the hospital grounds with her husband and three children.—AFP