Nigeria school massacre: 41 children killed, some burned alive
41 students and an English teacher have been killed in an Islamic extremist attack on a boarding school in northeast Nigeria. Some students were burned alive, according to survivors being treated for burn and gunshot wounds.
"We received 42 dead bodies of students and other staff of
Government Secondary School [in] Mamudo last night. Some of them
had gunshot wounds while many of them had burns and ruptured
tissues," Haliru Aliyu of the Potiskum General Hospital told
AFP.
Militants arrived on the scene with vessels carrying large
quantities of fuel, which they used to torch the building. Those
who tried to flee the burning wreckage were shot, the survivors
said.
The attack on Government Secondary School in Mamudo town in the
northeastern Yobe state is the latest in a series of militant
attacks targeting children.
Chaotic scenes were visible at the nearby hospital which was
treating victims of the attack as distressed screaming parents
attempted to identify their own children through charred bodies
and victims of shootings, according to AP.
A farmer named Malam Abdullahi located the bodies of two of his
sons: a 10-year-old who had been shot in the back as he
apparently attempted to escape, and a 12-year-old who had taken a
bullet to the chest.
“That's it, I'm taking my other boys out of school,” he
said tearfully. Abdullahi has three younger children who study
nearby.
“It's not safe,” he said. “The gunmen are attacking
schools and there is no protection for students despite all the
soldiers.”
A state of emergency was declared in Yobe in May, with President
Goodluck Jonathan sending thousands of troops to the region. Two
other northern states, Borno and Adamawa, have had similar
emergency conditions imposed on them.
The area has been targeted by the Boko Haram militant group
repeatedly. The sect’s name means “western education is
sacrilege.”
Since 2010, dozens of schools have been torched and over 1,600
victims murdered by extremists across the country.
