30 KILLED IN SCHOOL ATTACK IN NORTHEAST NIGERIA
POTISKUM, Nigeria (AP) -- Islamic militants attacked a boarding school before dawn Saturday, dousing a dormitory in fuel and lighting it ablaze as students slept, survivors said. At least 30 people were killed in the deadliest attack yet on schools in Nigeria's embattled northeast.
Authorities blamed the violence on Boko Haram, a radical group whose name means "Western education is sacrilege." The militants have been behind a series of recent attacks on schools in the region, including one in which gunmen opened fire on children taking exams in a classroom.
"We were sleeping when we heard gunshots. When I woke up, someone was pointing a gun at me," Musa Hassan, 15, told The Associated Press of the assault on Government Secondary School in Mamudo village in Yobe state.
He put his arm up in defense, and sustained a gunshot that blew off all four fingers on his right hand, the one he uses to write. His life was spared when the militants moved on after shooting him.
Hassan recalled how the gunmen came armed with jerry cans of fuel that they used to torch the school's administrative block and one of the dormitories.
"They burned the children alive," he said, the horror showing in his wide eyes.
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.
On Saturday, at the morgue of Potiskum General Hospital, a few miles from the scene of the attack, parents screamed in anguish as they attempted to identify the victims, many charred beyond recognition. Some parents don't know if their children survived or died.
Farmer Malam Abdullahi 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.
"The gunmen are attacking schools and there is no protection for students despite all the soldiers," he said as he wept over the two corpses. He said he is withdrawing his three remaining sons from another school.
By Saturday afternoon, thousands` of students had fled several boarding schools around Potiskum, leaving deserted campuses in fear of more attacks.
Former colonizer Britain condemned the "senseless atrocity," with Mark Simmonds, Minister for Africa, promising his country "will do what it can to help Nigeria tackle terrorism."
Islamic militants from Boko Haram and breakaway groups have killed more than 1,600 civilians in suicide bombings and other attacks since 2010, according to an Associated Press count.
President Goodluck Jonathan declared a state of emergency May 14 and deployed thousands of troops to halt the insurgency, acknowledging that militants had taken control of some towns and villages.
Saturday's attack killed 29 students and English teacher Mohammed Musa, who was shot in the chest, according to another teacher, Ibrahim Abdu. Police officers who arrived after the gunmen left and transported the bodies to the hospital confirmed at least 30 people were killed.
Boko Haram, whose stronghold is 230 kilometers (about 145 miles) away in Maiduguri city, capital of neighboring Borno state, has been behind scores of attacks on schools in the past year.
On Thursday, gunmen went to the home of a primary school headmaster and gunned down his entire family. Witnesses said they attacked at 7 a.m. as the owner of the private Godiya Nursery and Primary School was preparing to leave his home in the town of Biu, about 180 kilometers (110 miles) from Maiduguri.
Resident Anjikwi Bala told the AP that Hassan Godiya, his wife and four children all were killed. He said the assassins, suspected Boko Haram fighters, got away.
People from Yobe state this week appealed for the military to restore cell phone service in the area under a state of emergency, saying it could have helped avert a June 16 attack on a school that the military said killed seven students, two teachers, two soldiers and two extremists in Damaturu, capital of Yobe state.
Looks like rampant Islamophobia is really taking its toll on these peaceful Muslims, and they have no choice but to act out.
Christians should be ashamed of themselves for causing all of this.
I wonder, by the way, what religion the victims were. The press is strangely silent on that.
Apparently, NASA has failed President Obama's mission to
ReplyDelete[R]reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science, math and engineering.
--- James Bolden, NASA Administrator, 2010
Islamists simply and obviously are not feeling very good about their achievements in science, math, and engineering. Why, Islamist scientists have been denied the Nobel Prize for advances in civilian bomb belt technology (aka the Arafat Corset).
Personally, I blame George W Bush.