Nigeria: militants kill 50 students in college attack

Suspected Islamic extremists attacked an agricultural college in the dead of night, gunning down dozens of students as they slept in dormitories and torching classrooms in an ongoing Islamic uprising in northeast Nigeria, the school’s provost said.

Suspected Islamic extremists attacked an agricultural college in the dead of night, gunning down dozens of students as they slept in dormitories and torching classrooms in an ongoing Islamic uprising in northeast Nigeria, the school’s provost said.

As many as 50 students may have been killed in the attack on Sunday in rural Gujba, Provost Molima Idi Mato of the Yobe State College of Agriculture, said. “They attacked our students while they were sleeping in their hostels, they opened fire at them,” he said.

He said he could not give an exact death toll as security forces still are recovering bodies.

The Nigerian military has collected 42 bodies and transported 18 injured students to Damaturu Specialist Hospital, said a military intelligence official, who insisted on anonymity because he is not authorised to speak to the press.

The school’s other 1,000 enrolled students have fled the college that is about 40 km north of the scene of similar school attacks around Damaturu town, said provost Mato.