Students burnt alive in Nigeria school attack

At least 28 students and one teacher have been killed in an attack by gunmen on a boarding school in Nigeria’s northeast.

Survivors being treated for burn and gunshots wounds said some students were burned alive in the attack on the Government Secondary School in Mamudo town in Yobe state early on Saturday.

As he wept over the bodies of his two boys, farmer Malam Abdullahi swore he would withdraw three remaining sons from a nearby school. 

He complained there was no protection for students despite the deployment of thousands of troops since the government declared a state of emergency mid-May in three northeastern states.

Yvonne Ndege, our correspondent in Abuja, said the attack had the markings of the Boko Haram group who are known for attacking schools and are against western education. 

“People are going to be questioning how effective the military operation against the Boko Haram group has been.

“It is worth noting that military has been suggesting all along that they are winning the war. But one of the problems for journalists is that is hard to get information from the area, because mobile and satellite phones have been blocked so it is almost impossible to cross-check what the miltary is saying with civilian accounts,” our correspondent said.

On June 18,  the UN refugee agency reported that thousands of people were fleeing to Chad, Niger and Cameroon as the crisis in northern Nigeria deepened.

UNHCR officers said that up to 3,000 refugees had arrived in Cameroon amid reports of at least 6,000 people escaping to Niger over the month as the confrontation between the Nigerian army and the Boko Haram group intensified in the country’s northeast. 

Dozens of schools have been torched and unknown scores of students killed among more than 1,600 victims slain by armed groups since 2010.

Nigeria declared a state of emergency in three flashpoint states of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe in mid-May as it launched a major offensive to end the insurgency.