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Nigeria: Boko Haram Islamists storm college, kill students
(Reuters) – Suspected Islamist militants have stormed a college in northeastern Nigeria and shot dead around 40 male students, some of them while they slept early on Sunday, witnesses said.
The gunmen, thought to be members of al-Qaeda-linked Islamist sect Boko Haram, attacked one hostel, took some students outside before killing them and shot others trying to flee, people at the scene said.
The Boko Haram, which wants to establish an Islamic state in northern Nigeria, has intensified attacks on civilians in recent weeks in revenge for a military offensive against its insurgency. Several schools, seen as the focus of Western-style education and culture, have been targeted.
President Goodluck Jonathan described the assault as “the creation of the devil” and suggested it might be time to change tactics against the rebels, without going into details.
“They started gathering students into groups outside, then they opened fire and killed one group and then moved onto the next group and killed them. It was so terrible,” said one surviving student Idris, who would only give his first name.
“They came with guns around 1 a.m. local time and went directly to the male hostel and opened fire on them. The college is in the bush so the other students were running around helplessly as guns went off and some of them were shot down,” said Ahmed Gujunba, a taxi driver who lives by the college. Bodies were recovered from dormitories, classrooms and outside in the undergrowth on Sunday, a member of staff at the college told Reuters, asking not to be named.
The Boko Haram have become the biggest security threat in Africa’s second largest economy and top oil exporter.
Hundreds have been killed since Boko Haram launched its Islamist uprising in 2009, turning itself from a clerical movement opposed to Western culture into an armed militia with growing links to al-Qaeda’s West African wing. President Jonathan declared a state of emergency in three northeastern states in May, including Yobe, and ordered a military offensive to crush Boko Haram’s insurgency.
There was an initial lull in the violence as Islamists fled bases in cities, forests and mountains. Then the militants began revenge attacks on schools, security forces and civilians believed to be helping them. “When I declared a state of emergency things calmed down. Now they are looking for soft targets, If the drum is changing, we must change steps,” Mr Jonathan said in a speech in the capital Abuja.
“The people they killed they don’t even know them. This is the creation of the devil – No Boko Haram or any group can frustrate this country, I assure Nigerians that we will do what is required to protect them,” he added.
In July, suspected Boko Haram militants killed 27 students and a teacher at a school in Potiskum, a town about 50 kms from the site of Sunday’s attack.
Several people have died in assaults over the past few weeks. The Boko Haram insurgency is also putting pressure on the economy of Africa’s most populous nation. Nigeria’s security spending has risen to more than 1 trillion naira (US$6.7 billion), approximately 20 percent of the federal budget.