Abuja
(Nigeria): At least 46 students were killed and several others injured
when unidentified gunmen wearing military uniform attacked a hostel in
northern Nigeria on Tuesday. The massacre has taken place on Nigeria’s
52nd Independence celebration.
Gunmen invaded the hostel of Mubi Polytechnic in northern state of Adamawa, killing 46 students, police sources said. A lecturer said that the gunmen wore military attire and told the students to identify themselves by name.
According to him, some of them were spared after mentioning their names but no reason was given by the assailants for the identification process. The invaders used guns and knives in killing the students.
Danjuma Aiso, a student at the college, said assailants attacked rented accommodation outside the campus between 10 pm on Monday and 3 am on Tuesday and that he fled to the university campus.
He said students were recently warned to leave the college in a statement suspected to have been written by the radical Islamist sect known as Boko Haram. The attack follows the killing Saturday of three students outside a university campus about 100 miles away in Maiduguri, Boko Haram’s spiritual home.
The spokesman of the oilrich African country’s National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) Yushua Shuaib said he cannot say whether the assailants were members of any violent sect. “I also do not have the total casualty figure but would make it available soon,” he said. A curfew has been imposed on the city but that did not deter the frightened students from fleeing the place in droves.
Several killings in the state have been carried out by a Muslim militant sect called Boko Haram which wants to convert the people of northern Nigeria to Islam by force and install a Sharia government. The oil-rich African country’s 150 million people are equally divided among Muslims and Christians.
The group is against Western education and influence and has been carrying out its violent activities since 2009 when its leader, Muhammed Yusuf was killed by police.
But police were also looking at whether the killings might have been part of a political feud inside the college. Police said the shootings may have been prompted by a fallout between rival gangs over a student union election on Sunday. AGENCIES
Gunmen invaded the hostel of Mubi Polytechnic in northern state of Adamawa, killing 46 students, police sources said. A lecturer said that the gunmen wore military attire and told the students to identify themselves by name.
According to him, some of them were spared after mentioning their names but no reason was given by the assailants for the identification process. The invaders used guns and knives in killing the students.
Danjuma Aiso, a student at the college, said assailants attacked rented accommodation outside the campus between 10 pm on Monday and 3 am on Tuesday and that he fled to the university campus.
He said students were recently warned to leave the college in a statement suspected to have been written by the radical Islamist sect known as Boko Haram. The attack follows the killing Saturday of three students outside a university campus about 100 miles away in Maiduguri, Boko Haram’s spiritual home.
The spokesman of the oilrich African country’s National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) Yushua Shuaib said he cannot say whether the assailants were members of any violent sect. “I also do not have the total casualty figure but would make it available soon,” he said. A curfew has been imposed on the city but that did not deter the frightened students from fleeing the place in droves.
Several killings in the state have been carried out by a Muslim militant sect called Boko Haram which wants to convert the people of northern Nigeria to Islam by force and install a Sharia government. The oil-rich African country’s 150 million people are equally divided among Muslims and Christians.
The group is against Western education and influence and has been carrying out its violent activities since 2009 when its leader, Muhammed Yusuf was killed by police.
But police were also looking at whether the killings might have been part of a political feud inside the college. Police said the shootings may have been prompted by a fallout between rival gangs over a student union election on Sunday. AGENCIES
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