A suicide bomber dressed as a student
killed at least 48 people, most of them students, and injured 79 others
at a school assembly in the northeastern Nigerian town of Potiskum
today, a hospital official said.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack in Yobe State, a territory close to the stronghold of Boko Haram Sunni Muslim militants, who have staged a five-year insurgency.
Boko
Haram, which is Hausa for “western education is sinful”, has attacked
schools, abducted hundreds of students and killed thousands in its fight
for an Islamist state, and is seen as the main security threat to
Africa’s leading oil producer.
“So far, the number of the dead is
48, while 79 are injured. I counted the bodies, mostly students and a
few teachers,” said a nurse at Potiskum General Hospital.
“A
teacher who survived the blast with minor injury said the bomber
dressed like a student and was also on the assembly ground with the
students,” she said, asking to remain anonymous.
Mariam Ibrahim, a teacher at the Government Science Secondary School in Potiskum said the bomb detonated as she was arriving and students were at morning assembly.
A
second teacher, asking to remain anonymous, said: “There are some
(others) that are critically injured and I am sure the death toll will
rise.”
Boko Haram has intensified its attacks in
the past few weeks since a purported ceasefire agreement, announced by
the Nigerian government, was later rejected by the group’s leader in a
video.
The group has attacked schools, abducted
hundreds of students and killed thousands in its fight for an Islamist
state, and is seen as the main security threat to Africa’s leading oil
producer.
The Nigeria Police Force confirmed that the bomber was disguised as a student.
Potiskum
resident Aliyu Abubakar said he heard the explosion when he was
dropping off his two sons at a nearby Islamic college. “One of my sons
fell down, I came out dragged him in and we drove off back home,” he
said. Reuters
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