The emergency rule imposed on Yobe
State appeared to have suffered a setback after gunmen, suspected to be Boko
Haram Islamists, struck in a Potiskum secondary school, early yesterday,
killing 29 students and a teacher.
Another report said 42 students were
killed in the attack while dozens were missing.
Eye witnesses spoke of a gory sight
as some of the students in the boarding school were burned alive.
Parents screamed in anguish as they
tried to identify the charred and gunshot victims.
Yobe is one of the three states
where President Goodluck Jonathan imposed a state of emergency on May 14
following the insurgency by the Boko Haram sect which claimed hundreds of
lives. The two other states are Adamawa and Yobe.
The military, deployed in the wake of
the emergency rule, has claimed success regarding control of the three states
before yesterday’s assault.
The Joint Task Force (JTF) enforcing
the emergency rule said it had killed and arrested hundreds of Boko Haram
fighters.
Yesterday’s attack on the Potiskum
school came just as unidentified gunmen attacked the Divisional Police
Station and a bank in Karim Lamido local government area of Taraba State,
killing three policemen.
Students burned alive
Mallam Abdullahi, father of two of
the victims of the Potiskum attack, a report said, found the bodies of two of
his sons, a 10-year-old shot in the back as he apparently tried to run away,
and a 12-year-old shot in the chest.
“That’s it, I’m taking my other boys
out of school,” he said as he wept over the two corpses. He said he had three
younger children in a nearby school.
“It’s not safe,” he said. “The gunmen
are attacking schools and there is no protection for students despite all the
soldiers.”
Survivors at the Potiskum General
Hospital and its mortuary said the gunmen attacked Government Secondary School
in Mamudo village, five kilometres (3 miles) from Potiskum town at about 3 a.m.
They killed 29 students and an English teacher, Mohammed Musa, who was shot in
the chest, according to another teacher, Ibrahim Abdu.
“We were sleeping when we heard
gunshots. When I woke up, someone was pointing a gun at me,” said 15-year-old
Musa Hassan. He put his arm up in defence, and suffered a gunshot that blew off
all four fingers on his right hand, the one he uses to write with.
He said the gunmen came armed with
jerry cans of fuel that they used to torch the school’s administrative block
and one of the hostels.
“They burned the children alive,” he
said, the horror showing in his wide eyes.
Charred bodies
He and teachers at the morgue said
dozens of children from the 1,200-student school escaped into the bush but have
not been seen since. Some bodies were so charred they could not be
identified; many parents did not know if their children survived or died.
Explosives
“We received 42 dead bodies of
students and other staff of Government Secondary School in Mamudo last night.
Some of them had gunshot wounds while many of them had burns and ruptured
tissues,” Haliru Aliyu of the Potiskum General Hospital was quoted as saying by
another report.
“From accounts of teachers and other
students who escaped the attack, the gunmen gathered their victims in a hostel
and threw explosives and opened fire, leading to the death of 42,” Aliyu said.
According to him, security personnel were combing the bushes around the school
in search of students believed to have escaped with gunshot wounds.
“So far six students have been found
and are now in the hospital being treated for gunshot wounds,” he added.
Reprisal
A local resident who did not want to
be named confirmed the attack. “It was a gory sight. People who went to the
hospital and saw the bodies shed tears. There were 42 bodies, most of them were
students. Some of them had parts of their bodies blown off and badly burnt
while others had gunshot wounds,” he said. The resident said the attack was
believed to be a reprisal by the Boko Haram Islamists for the killing of 22
sect members during a military raid in the town of Dogon Kuka on Thursday.
Meanwhile, unidentified gunmen,
suspected to be bandits, in the early hours of yesterday, attacked the
Divisional Police Station and an old generation bank in Karim Lamido Local
Government Area of Taraba State.
3 killed in police station, bank raid
Three policemen on duty at the police
station, which the assailants first attacked, were shot dead while their
colleagues sustained various degrees of injuries and the station
was destroyed.
The attackers then proceeded to raid
the old generation bank in the town where an unspecified amount of money was
carted away.
Eyewitnesses in Jalingo, the state
capital, said the attackers came in a large number.
One of them described the gunshots as
unprecedented even as most of the residents of the town were kept awake all
night.
According to him, some of the
residents, who ran out of the town for their dear lives following the sporadic
gunshots, were yet to return.
Taraba State Police Command
confirmed the incident.
The command public relations officer,
PPRO, Joseph Kwaji (ASP), said armed bandits were responsible for the attack
adding that the police were on their trail.
He did not however confirm the
casualty figure.
Tambuwal condemns massacre
In the meantime, the Speaker of the
House of Representatives, Hon Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, has described the killing
of the students as ignoble, wicked and horrendous.
According to him, no reason can be
given to justify such dastardly act.
In a statement in Abuja,
yesterday, by his Special Adviser on Media and Public Affairs, Malam Imam Imam,
Tambuwal tasked security agencies to fish out perpetrators of the attack and
bring them justice. He said the gains recorded by security agencies in their
battle against terror in the country in recent weeks should be built upon in
order to protect the citizens at all times. While expressing sympathy with the
families of the victims, the Speaker urged Nigerians to be more vigilant
and to help security agencies with useful information to hep secure their
areas.
Tambuwal called for information that
will lead to the arrest of the perpetrators of the assault.
He said the National Assembly will,
at all times, give necessary support to ensure that peace and security is
restored in all parts of the country.
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