Boko Haram Attacks Hostel At Midnight Kills And Burn 42 Students Inlcuding A Teacher

Islamic militants attacked a boarding school in northeast Nigeria before dawn Saturday, killing 29 students and one teacher. Some of the pupils were burned alive in the latest school attack blamed on a radical terror group, survivors said. Parents screamed in anguish as they tried to identify the charred and gunshot 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 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 gunmen attacked Government Secondary School in Mamudo village, 3 miles from Potiskum town at about 3 a.m. Saturday.

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 defense, 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.

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 do not know if their children survived or died.

The attackers rounded up students and staff of the school and placed them in a dormitory before throwing explosives inside and opening fire, said Haliru Aliyu of Potiskum General Hospital, quoting witnesses who escaped.

“We received 42 dead bodies of students and other staff of Government Secondary School (in) Mamudo last night. Some of them had gunshot wounds,” Aliyu told AFP, adding that many also had burns.

Aliyu said security personnel were combing the area around the school in search of wounded students who have fled the attack.

“So far six students have been found and are now in the hospital being treated for gunshot wounds,” he said.
Mamudo is some five kilometres (three miles) from Potiskum, the commercial hub of the state of Yobe, which has been a flashpoint in the Boko Haram insurgency in recent months.

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,” he said.

“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 attack was believed to be a reprisal carried out by Boko Haram for the killing of 22 of the Islamist group’s members during a military raid in the town of Dogon Kuka on Thursday.