Islamists massacre Nigerian students

40 die at agricultural college in ruthless night-time attack

DAMATURU, NIGERIA— Suspected Islamist militants stormed an agricultural college in northeastern Nigeria early Sunday and shot dead about 40 students, some of them while they were sleeping, witnesses said.

The gunmen, thought to be members of rebel sect Boko Haram, attacked one hostel, took some students outside before killing them and shot others trying to flee, people at the scene told Reuters.

Boko Haram, which wants to establish an Islamic state in northern Nigeria, has intensified attacks on civilians in recent weeks in revenge for a summer military offensive against its insurgency.

Several schools, seen as the focus of Western-style education and culture, have been targeted. (Boko Haram means “Western education is a sin” in the local Hausa language.)

President Goodluck Jonathan described the attack as “the creation of the devil” and hinted it might be time to change tactics against the rebels.

“They started gathering students into groups outside, then they opened fire and killed one group and then moved onto the next group and killed them. It was so terrible,” said one surviving student Idris, who would only give his first name.

“They came with guns around1a.m. and went directly to the male hostel and opened fire on them . . . The college is in the bush so the other students were running around helplessly as guns went off and some of them were shot down,” said Ahmed Gujunba, a taxi driver who lives nearby.

Bodies were recovered Sunday from dormitories and classrooms and from undergrowth outside.

Later in the day, a witness counted 40 bloody corpses piled on the floor at the main hospital in the Yobe state capital of Damaturu, mostly young men believed to be students.

The bodies had been brought there from the college, which is in Gujba, 50 kilometres south of Damaturu.

State police commissioner Sanusi Rufai said he suspected Boko Haram was behind the attack but gave no details.

Thousands have been killed since Boko Haram launched its uprising in 2009, turning itself from a clerical movement opposed to Western culture into an armed militia with links to Al Qaeda’s West African wing. A state of emergency declared in May produced only a temporary lull.

In July, suspected Boko Haram militants killed 27 students and a teacher at a school in Potiskum, a town about 50 kilometres from the site of Sunday’s attack.