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Students shot as they sleep in latest Nigerian outrage
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Suspected Islamic extremists attacked an agricultural college in the dead of night, gunning down dozens of students as they slept in dormitories and torching classrooms, in the latest violence in northeastern Nigeria’s ongoing Islamic uprising.
As many as 50 students may have been killed in the assault that began at about 1am yesterday in rural Gujba, Provost Molima Idi Mato of Yobe State College of Agriculture told reporters.
“They attacked our students while they were sleeping in their hostels, they opened fire at them,” he said.
He could not give an exact death toll as security forces were still recovering bodies of students mostly aged between 18 and 22.
The Nigerian military has collected 42 bodies and transported 18 wounded students to Damaturu Specialist Hospital, said a military intelligence official.
The extremists rode into the college in two double-cabin pickup all-terrain vehicles and on motorcycles, some dressed in Nigerian military camouflage uniforms, a surviving student, Ibrahim Mohammed, said.
He said they appeared to know the layout of the college, attacking the four male hostels but avoiding the one hostel reserved for women. “We ran into the bush, nobody is left in the school now,” Mohammed said.
Almost all those killed were Muslims, as is the college’s student body, said Adamu Usman, a survivor from Gujba who was helping the wounded at the hospital.
Wailing relatives gathered outside the hospital morgue, where rescue workers laid out bodies on the lawn for family members to identify their loved ones.
No security forces
One body had its fists clenched to the chest in a protective gesture. Another had hands clasped under the chin, as if in prayer. A third had arms raised in surrender.
Mato confirmed the school’s other 1,000 enrolled students had fled the college.
He said there were no security forces stationed at the college despite government assurances they would be deployed. The state commissioner for education, Mohammmed Lamin, called a news conference two weeks ago urging all schools to reopen and promising protection.
Most schools in the area closed after militants killed 29 pupils and a teacher on July 6, burning some alive in their hostels at Mamudo outside Damaturu.
Northeastern Nigeria is under a military state of emergency to battle an Islamic uprising prosecuted by Boko Haram militants who have killed more than 1,700 people since 2010 in their quest for an Islamic state, though half the country’s 160 million citizens are Christian.
Last week, US President Barack Obama described the group as one of the most vicious terrorist organizations in the world, speaking at a meeting with Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan at which both reaffirmed their commitment to fight terrorism.
Last week, Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau published a video to prove false military claims that they might have killed him in the ongoing crackdown.
Government and security officials say they are winning the war on terror in the northeast but yesterday’s attack and others belie those assurances.
The Islamic extremists have killed at least 30 other civilians over the past week.
More than 30,000 people have fled the terrorist attacks to neighboring Cameroon and Chad and the uprising has forced farmers from their fields and vendors from their markets.
Meanwhile, Nigeria is preparing to celebrate 52 years of independence from Britain tomorrow.
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