Nigeria—Islamic militants attacked a boarding school

POTISKUM, Nigeria—Islamic militants attacked a boarding school in northeast Nigeria before dawn Saturday, killing 29 students and one teacher. Some were burned alive, survivors said.

The gunmen are believed to be from the radical terror group Boko Haram, known to target schools; its name means "Western education is sacrilege."

Parents screamed in anguish as they tried to identify the charred and shot victims.

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.

"That's it, I'm taking my other boys out of school," he told the Associated Press as he wept over the two corpses. He said he has 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 gunmen attacked Government Secondary School in Mamudo village, 5 kilometers (3 miles) from Potiskum town at about 3 a.m. Saturday.

The teacher killed was Mohammed Musa, shot in the chest, according to another teacher, Ibrahim Abdu. Mr. Musa taught English.

"We were sleeping when we heard gunshots," said 15-year-old Musa Hassan. " When I woke up, someone was pointing a gun at me."

He put his arm up in defense, and suffered a gunshot that blew off all four fingers on his right hand, the one he writes with.

He said the gunmen came armed with jerrycans 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.

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 are so charred they could not be identified, so many parents don't know whether their children survived or died.

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.

Scores of schools have been burned down in the past year in northeast Nigeria.

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.

The military has claimed success in regaining control, with soldiers saying they have killed and arrested hundreds of fighters. But the area—the states of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe—is enormous: some 155,000 square kilometers (60,000 square miles) or one-sixth of the sprawling country. And the crackdown, including attacks with fighter jets and helicopter gunships on militant camps, appears to have driven the extremists into mountain caves, from which they emerge to attack schools and markets.

The militants have increasingly targeted civilians, including health workers on vaccination campaigns, teachers and government workers.

Farmers have been driven from their land by the extremists and by military roadblocks, adding the specter of a food shortage to the woes of a people already hampered by the military's shutdown of cellphone service and ban on using satellite telephones.

Share this: