At least 48 school students have been killed in Nigeria after a suicide
bomber apparently dressed in school uniform detonated explosives in a
packed assembly meeting.
Around 2,000 students - some as young as 11 - were waiting to hear the
principal's Monday morning address when the blast ripped through the
crowd. Eyewitnesses spoke of horrific scenes as body parts were
scattered all over the school compound. The mood then turned to anger,
with soldiers who turned up to secure the area pelted with rocks by
locals, who accused them of failing to protect the area against terrorist
attack.
The bombing took place at the Government Technical Science College in
the city of Potiskum, a town of 200,000 in north-east Nigeria's Yobe
state and a regular target of attacks by the Boko Haram Islamist
group. Only last week, a suicide bomb in the same city killed 30 people
taking part in a religious procession of moderate Muslims.
Musa Ibrahim Yahaya, survivor of the school bombing, spoke to the AP
news agency from his hospital bed, where he was being treated for head
wounds. "We were waiting for the principal to address us, around 7:30
a.m., when we heard a deafening sound and I was blown off my feet,"
he said. "People started screaming and running, I saw blood all over my
body."
Aliyu Abubakar, a Potiskum resident, 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.
A morgue attendant said 48 bodies were brought to the hospital and all
appeared to be between the ages of 11 and 20 years old. Hospital
workers said the scale of the injuries was so bad that some of the
injured were likely to need amputations.
Survivors said the bomber appeared to have hidden the explosives in a
type of rucksack popular with students. Nigeria's military recently
reported finding a bomb factory where explosives were being sewn into
rucksacks in the northern city of Kano.
While there has so far been no claim of responsibility for the attack,
suspicion will fall on Boko Haram, which has carried out numerous
bombings and Mumbai-style gun attacks during the five-year
insurgency it has fought in its bid to turn an Islamic caliphate in
northern Nigeria. The group, whose name roughly translates as "Western
education is sinful", has focused many of its attacks on schools.
In February, gunmen killed at least 40 students after throwing
explosives into the dormitory of a government boarding school in Buni
Yadi, also in Yobe state. And
in July last year, 42 students were killed when Boko Haram attacked
dormitories in a gun and bomb attack on a government boarding school
in the village of Mamudo, near Potiskum.
Boko Haram's most high-profile attack on a school came in April, when
fighters kidnapped 276 girls from the town of Chibok in Borno state,
also in northeast Nigeria.
More than six months later, 219 of the girls are still being held. Claims
last month that the girls were to be released as part of a ceasefire deal
were rubbished on Sunday in a new video broadcast by Boko Haram's
leader, Abubakar Shekau.
A medic at the Potiskum General Hospital, where the victims were taken,
said scores of students had been admitted. "We are still receiving
casualties from the school which is a stone's throw from here," the
medic said.
"Our priority now is to save the injured, so we have not started a
headcount of the victims."
A local resident, Adamu Alkassim, said there was confusion in and
around the school. The scene was a mass of abandoned footwear and
blood.
Yobe is one of three northeastern states that has been under a state of
emergency since May last year to try to quell the bloody insurgency.
But violence has continued unabated and Boko Haram has seized at least
two dozen towns and villages in recent months, raising doubts about the
government's ability to control the region.

Fp things o mod

Source??

Still on born to rule issues. so sad

May the souls of these children and the souls of all the faithful departed, Through the mercy of God rest in peace.

I'll never get tired of saying this prayer, until I die too.

I'm in Kano, and it may be my turn anytime.

While we are dying, we know that these bloodshed will end soon in the nearest future.

And it happens...again and again

And it happens again..again and again