Death Toll From Yobe Girls College Massacre Now 43

KANO (AFP) – The death toll from a school massacre in Yobe by suspected

Boko Haram Islamists on Tuesday has risen to 43, a hospital source in the

troubled northeastern Yobe state said.
“Ambulances have been bringing in bodies from Federal Government College

in (the town of Buni Yadi,” a senior medical source at the Sani Abacha

Specialist Hospital in Yobe's capital Damaturu told AFP. “So far 43 bodies

have been brought and are lying at the morgue,” he said, requesting

anonymity as he was not authorised to discuss death tolls.

Yobe's police chief Sanusi Rufai told AFP that 29 people were killed but

it was not immediately clear if all of the dead were students.

Rufai said he was en route to Buni Yadi with Yobe's covernor Ibrahim

Geidam to assess the extent of the damage.
Yobe is one of three northeastern states which was placed under emergency

rule in May last year when the military launced a massive operation to

crush the Boko Haram uprising.
At least 40 students were killed in September at an agriculture training

college in Yobe after Boko Haram gunmen stormed a series of dorms in the

middle of the night and sprayed gunfire on sleeping students.

More than 1,000 people have been killed in the northeast since the

emergency measures were imposed, despite the enhanced military presence.

Boko Haram, declared a terrorist organisation by Nigeria and the United

States, has said it is fighting to create an Islamic state in Nigeria's

mainly Muslim north.
Geidam and the governor of neighbouring Borno state, Kashim Shettima, have

fiercely criticised the military's record in combatting Boko Haram,

insisting that more resources were needed to defeat the emboldened and

increasingly well-armed insurgents.
In a video sent to AFP last week, Boko Haram's purported leader, Abubakar

Shekau, said he would continue his relentless campaign of violence on

anyone who supports democracy or so-called Western values.

Shekau, declared a global terrorist by the United States, also threated to

widen the insurgency outside the group's northeastern stronghold with

attacks in the oil-producing, southern Niger Delta region.

Nigeria is Africa's top oil producer and an Islamist attack in the

country's key economic region would pile further pressure on President

Goodluck Jonathan, who has faced scathing criticism over his handling of

the Boko Haram crisis.