Boko Haram resurfaces, kills 20 students in fresh attack

It was another bloody weekend in Yobe State yesterday after gunmen, suspected to be members of the Islamist sect, Boko Haram, attacked a secondary school. Twenty students and a teacher were killed.

The gunmen raided Government Secondary School, a boarding school at Mamudo, on the outskirts of Potiskum, the commercial hub of Yobe State which has been a flashpoint in the Boko Haram insurgency.

Spokesman for the Joint Task Force in the state, Lt. Lazarus Eli, confirmed the casualties figure.

He said four others were injured in the dawn attack.

However, sources at the Potiskum General Hospital said 42 dead bodies were deposited in the hospital

The federal authorities approved an immediate deployment of more troops to the area while the National Security Adviser (NSA), Mallam Sambo Dasuki ordered a probe of the massacre.

The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mallam Aminu Tambuwal condemned the attack and told the security agencies to live up to their responsibilities.[

The gunmen struck at about 5.30am yesterday.
Some of the pupils were burned alive in the attack, the worst of the three by the sect, since the declaration of a state of emergency in Yobe, Borno and Adamawa by President Goodluck Jonathan on May 14 to end the reign of terror unleashed by the fundamentalists mainly on the North.

The teacher, Mohammed Musa, an English language instructor, was shot in the chest according to another teacher, Ibrahim Abdu.

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

A 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.'

'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.

'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,' one source said.

He said security personnel were combing the bushes around the school in search of students who were 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.