An explosion ripped through a school in northeast Nigeria on Monday, as
students gathered for morning assembly before classes began, a teacher
and a medic told us. The blast happened at the Government Comprehensive
Senior Science Secondary School in Potiskum, Yobe state, as students
waited to hear the principal’s daily address.
“
The
students had gathered for the morning assembly when something exploded
in their midst with a thunderous sound at exactly 7:50 am (0650 GMT),” said one teacher, who asked not to be identified.
“
The
explosion has affected many students but I can’t say how many because
we are now evacuating the victims to the hospital which is just 100
metres (yards) away,” the teacher added, sobbing.
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 but the scene was a mass of abandoned footwear and blood.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack but Boko Haram militants are likely to be the prime suspects.
The
group, which wants to create a hardline Islamic state in northern
Nigerian, has previously carried out deadly attacks on schools teaching a
so-called Western curriculum since 2009.
In
February, gunmen killed at least 40 students when they opened fire on
students and threw explosives into the dormitory of a government
boarding school in Buni Yadi, also in Yobe state.
In July last year
42 students were killed when Boko Haram gunmen attacked dormitories with
guns and explosives in a government boarding school in the village of
Mamudo, near Potiskum.
Potiskum, the commercial hub of Yobe state, has been repeatedly targeted by deadly attacks blamed on Boko Haram.
Just last week, at least 15 people were killed in a suicide bomb attack targeting a Shia religious ceremony in the city.
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 fears of the
government’s ability to control the region.
