Boko Haram kills 43 pupils

IT was like a scene from an action-packed movie. A band of insurgents bearing rifles stormed a school. They set fire to the administrative block, moved on to the hostels where pupils were fast asleep and shut the gates. They set the hostels on fire and started shooting. Those who tried to escape were captured, their throats slit.

But it was no movie. The scene was real at the Federal Government College, Buni Yadi, Yobe State where no fewer than 43 pupils were killed on Tuesday by Boko Haram insurgents.

They died either from gunshot wounds, direct attacks through matchettes or as a result of complications from burns. The death toll was expected to rise yesterday as soldiers were still gathering bodies, military spokesman Capt. Eli Lazarus said.

The attack is the fourth on schools in Yobe. Governor Ibrahim Gaidam was furious. The figure of the dead from Boko Haram attacks this year is about 300 civilians – two months alone. There are no figures of the military dead. The sect’s members invaded Buni Yadi – 70 kilometres from Yobe State capital Damaturu – in many Hilux and other categories of vehicles, according to eye witnesses. They started operating around 2.00a.m and did not leave the school until early morning. There were no troops in sight when they operated.

The insurgents set ablaze a locked hostel, shooting and slitting the throats of those who escaped through windows. Some were burned alive. Forty buildings were burnt down. A teacher, Adamu Garba, said he and other teachers who ran away through the bush estimate 40 students died in the assault that began around 2 a.m. It was difficult to communicate from the town, because extremists last year destroyed the cell phone tower there. Garba, who teaches at a secondary school attached to the college, said the attackers first set ablaze the college’s administrative block, then moved to the hostels, where they locked students in and started firebombing the buildings.

At one hostel, he said, “students were trying to climb out of the windows and they were slaughtered like sheep by the terrorists who slit their throats”. Others who ran were gunned down.’’ He said students who could not escape were burnt alive. Garba spoke to The Associated Press (AP) in Damaturu, where he and other teachers escaped to. President Goodluck Jonathan, in a media chat on Monday night, said Boko Haram attacks were “quite worrisome”, but that he was sure “we will get over it.”

Thousands of Nigerians have lost family members, houses, businesses, their belongings and livelihoods in the four-year-old rebellion. Tearful Governor Ibrahim Gaidam suspended his week-long inspection tour of projects to visit the college, which is razed down. The governor said some of the burnt students had been conveyed to Damaturu by Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) and State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) officials. He uttered no word as he moved from one ambulance to the other, looking at the burnt students.

Parents of some of the dead yesterday evacuated the bodies for burial. Three of the injured pupils are on treatment at the Gen. Sani Abacha Specialist Hospital in Damaturu. Military sources claimed that the insurgents invaded the school overnight through what preliminary investigation described as an “unusual source”. Some of them were said to have used the bush path to sneak into the school to perpetrate the deadly act.

Troops are said to be on the trail of the insurgents, with the Defence Headquarters ordering troops to either arrest or destroy them en masse. According to a top security source, most structures in the school were burnt by the insurgents. “A mop-up operation is still in progress as I am talking to you,” he said. Responding to a question, the source added: “The insurgents came to the school in an unusual manner, using bush path. They trekked to the school under the cover of darkness. “They invaded Buni Yadi from their bases and cells, which are between Yobe and Borno states. Certainly, they came in from Borno axis.

“Unlike in the past, they did not shoot or use vehicles to attract attention of security men in the college. “We also discovered that they destroyed the telecommunications masts in the area about two days before the invasion. They brought down the masts to make it impossible for the school management to send distress signal to town. “As a matter of fact, they changed their tactics but they cannot have the last laugh.” Asked if there was no military formation or post around the area, the source added: “There were troops in Buni Yadi. They were patrolling other locations in the town as at the time of the incident.” “The Chief of Defence Staff, Air Chief Marshal Alex Badeh, has ordered troops to rout out the insurgents dead or alive. It is not everything we can disclose, but we are tracking them by air and land.”

Defence Headquarters spokesman Maj.-Gen. Chris Olukolade said: “The insurgents are being trailed to locations between Yobe and Borno states. The whole operation is involving air and land counter-attacks. “It is either the insurgents are arrested or destroyed. We believe that we will get them.”