Two pregnant women on Tuesday collapsed and died in Bauchi, while waiting to be screened by the Verification Team from the office of the Accountant-General of the Bauchi State government.
The victims were among the over 6,000 teachers in the state who were asked to converge on the state local government education secretariat for screening before collecting their salaries, Vanguard reports.
An eyewitness, who gave his name as Abubakar Yusuf , told the newspaper that the first woman, who was seven months pregnant, fainted when the crowd was pushing to be verified.
He said they all assembled at the local government education authority for the verification, “because we have not been paid for three months. People came from all the local government areas of the state, so there was a massive crowd that gathered at the venue.
“The verification exercise took us by surprise because we were in the classroom teaching when we were summoned for the screening. That was why there was a large turn-out of people.”
He added: “Some of the people who came early were lucky enough to be verified, but as the crowd kept increasing, people began to push each other. In the process, an unidentified pregnant woman fainted and went into a comma.”
“Another pregnant woman also collapsed and had a miscarriage instantly. The two pregnant women were rushed to the hospital for treatment. We later heard that they died.”