News

Over 47 Students Killed By Suicide Bomber As Bomb Blast Rocks School Assembly

Published

10 years ago

November 10, 2014

At least 46 students have been killed by a suicide bomber at a school assembly in the north-eastern Nigerian town of Potiskum, police have said.
The explosion at a boys’ school in the town is believed to have been caused by a suicide bomber dressed as a student.
The militant group Boko Haram is believed to have carried out the attack, police said.
The group has targeted schools during a deadly five-year insurgency aimed at establishing an Islamic state.
It is waging a sustained campaign to prevent children from going to school. It believes girls should not attend school and boys should only receive an Islamic education.
‘Devastating attack’
The explosion ripped through the assembly hall at the Government Science Secondary School, reports say.
Police spokesman Emmanuel Ojukwu said the attack had left 47 people dead, including the suicide bomber. Another 79 were wounded.
“At about 08:00am, a suicide bomber disguised himself as one of the male students and while the school was holding its normal assembly, the bomb went off,” Mr Ojukwu said.
He added that police were investigating the explosion.
One of the student said he saw the mutilated bodies of fellow students at the scene, where emergency operations were ongoing. A resident reported seeing parents wailing at the sight of their children’s bodies at the hospital.
Soldiers who attended the site of the explosion were met with fury by the assembled crowds who pelted them with stones and accused them of not doing enough to halt Boko Haram’s insurgency.
A grieving relative said: “My brother, a student in the school, died in the blast. He was about 16 years old. We buried him at about 11:00am today.”