Gunmen reportedly launched a vicious attack on the College of Agriculture in Yobe state, Nigeria, Sunday, killing an unspecified number of students.
Details of the attack are still sketchy but the provost of the college, Mulima Mata, confirmed the incident, which the News Agency of Nigeria said occurred early Sunday morning in the Gujba district of the state, the Premium Times reports.
Reports say the students were shot dead as they slept in their dormitory.
The Yobe state command of the Nigeria police could not be reached to confirm the incident.
The Agence France-Presse news agency quoted a military spokesman in Yobe state, Lazarus Eli, as saying the gunmen also set fire to classrooms.
Residents believe the attack has the imprimatur of the extremist Boko Haram sect, which has in the past three years slaughtered thousands of innocent Nigerians in attacks on schools, places of worship, media establishments and security installations, the Times reports.
Academic activities only resumed last week in schools across Yobe state following 10 weeks of closure after the brazen attack by members of the violent sect on two secondary schools that led to the death of 29 students and three teachers.
The state government ordered the closure of all schools in the northeastern state after the attack by members of the sect on Government Secondary School, Mamudo, the report said.
Winning the War
Some of the victims in the July 6 Mamudo school acttack were burned alive, according to the Associated Press.
Government and security officials claim they are winning their war on terror in the northeast, but Sunday’s attack and others belie those assurances.
The Islamic extremists have killed at least 30 other civilians in the past week.
Twenty-seven people died in separate attacks Wednesday and Thursday night on two villages of Borno state near the northeast border with Cameroon, according to the representative of the Gamboru-Ngala local government council.
More than 30,000 people have fled the terrorist attacks to neighboring Cameroon and Chad. The uprising, combined with the military emergency, has forced farmers from the fields and vendors from the markets.
The attacks come as Nigeria prepares to celebrate 52 years of independence from Britain on Tuesday and amid increasing political jockeying as the country gears up for presidential elections next year, Al-Jazeera reports.
