Boys are treated at the General hospital in Potiskum, Nigeria following a suicide bomb attack
Disguised in a school uniform, a suicide bomber set off explosives hidden in a backpack during an assembly Monday at a high school in northern Nigeria, killing at least 48 students and wounding 79 others.
It was the latest attack by suspected Boko Haram militants who kidnapped more than 200 schoolgirls earlier this year.
Soldiers rushed to the grisly scene, spattered with body parts, but were chased away by a stone-throwing crowd angry at the military’s inability to halt a 5-year-old Islamic insurgency that has targeted schools and killed thousands.
The Islamic militants — whose name means “Western education is sinful” in the local Hausa language — have intensified the tempo and deadliness of attacks since the government announced last month that the group had agreed to a cease-fire and that the schoolgirls would be released imminently. Boko Haram’s leader has denied any cease-fire deal and the girls have not been set free.
Monday’s bombing came one week after a suicide attack in Potiskum, the capital of Yobe state, killed 30 people taking part in a religious procession by moderate Muslims.
Some 2,000 students had gathered for a weekly assembly at the Government Technical Science College when the explosion ripped through the school hall, survivors said.
“We were waiting for the principal to address us, around 7:30 a.m., when we heard a deafening sound and I was blown off my feet. People started screaming and running. I saw blood all over my body,” 17-year-old student Musa Ibrahim Yahaya said from his hospital bed, where he was being treated for head wounds.
Survivors said the bomber hid the explosives in a type of backpack popular with students. Months ago Nigeria’s military reported finding a bomb factory where explosives were being sewn into backpacks in the northern city of Kano.
Hospital records showed 48 bodies and many body parts were brought to the morgue. Seventy-nine students were admitted, many with serious injuries that may require amputations, health workers said. The hospital was so overcrowded that some patients were crammed two to a bed.
The victims all appeared to be between the ages of 11 and 20, a morgue attendant said. Adamu Adamu and Michelle Faul, Potiskum , AP
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