Suicide bomber kills nearly 50 at Nigerian school

A SUICIDE bomber dressed as a student infiltrated the morning assembly at a high school in northern Nigeria yesterday and detonated explosives in a backpack, killing almost 50 students and teachers, according to news reports.Although there was no immediate claim of responsibility, suspicion quickly focused on the Boko Haram militant group, which has carried out similar attacks in that part of Nigeria.

The group’s name translates roughly as “Western education is sinful.”

The bombing was one of the bloodiest attacks in months.

Government forces rushed to the school in the town of Potiskum in Yobe State, but angry residents throwing stones prevented them from reaching the site of the blast. A bomb killed almost 30 people in the same town last week.

Many Nigerians are incensed at the military’s seeming inability to curb Boko Haram which earlier this year kidnapped more than 200 girls from the town of Chibok in nearby Borno State.

In Potiskum, Reuters reported, residents accused government soldiers of opening fire on them after last week’s attack.

Witnesses said the blast yesterday left an assembly area at the Government Science Secondary School spattered with body parts.

The Associated Press quoted an unidentified morgue attendant as saying the dead appeared to be 11 to 20 years old.

An additional 79 students were reported injured and rushed to a nearby hospital, which became so overcrowded that the wounded were packed two to a bed. Reuters quoted a nurse at the hospital as saying the dead included “a few” teachers along with their students.

Boko Haram has stepped up its onslaught since Nigerian authorities announced a cease-fire last month and forecast the liberation of the more than 200 schoolgirls abducted in April.

In mid-October, Nigeria’s top military official announced a cease-fire with Boko Haram while another senior government official spoke of an imminent deal to release the schoolgirls, whose fate has become the focus of global attention and protest.

But the leader of the militant group, Abubakar Shekau, replied with a videotaped message which, according to Nigerian news accounts, dismissed any talk of a cease-fire and said the girls had accepted Islam and had been married off.

“Who agreed to a cease-fire? You aren’t serious,” he was quoted as saying, a message that seemed to have been underscored by Monday’s attack.
The Nigerian police put the number of dead on Monday at 47 but other accounts from morgue officials put the toll at 48.