TerrorismNigerian Islamic extremists burn children alive during attack on boarding school
At least twenty-nine high school students and a teacher are dead after militants from the Islamic Boko Haram group attacked a boarding school in northeast Nigeria. The Islamists set the school dorm on fire while students, aged 10 to 15, were sleeping inside. Most of the dead were burned alive inside the dorm. The militant waited outside the dorm, and shot those who tried to escape the burning building.
Boko Haram fighter preparing for action // Source: jamnews.ir
At least twenty-nine high school students and a teacher are dead after militants from the Islamic Boko Haram group attacked a boarding school in northeast Nigeria.
The Islamists approached the Government Secondary School in Mamudo town in Yobe state in the middle of the night, when dozens of students were asleep in the school’s dorm. They poured gasoline around the dorm and set it on fire. Most of the dead were burned alive inside the dorm. The militants waited outside the dorm and shot those who tried to escape the burning building.
The Daily Mail reports that local residents complained that although the Nigerian military has deployed thousands of troops to the area since mid-May, there was no protection for students.
One of the main goals of the Nigerian Islamists is to fight what they consider to be “Western” influence in the country, influence, they argue, which is spread through education. The militants, therefore, target schools and kill students and teachers as part of a systematic campaign. Dozens of schools have been torched.
Saturday’s attack was the third school attack since mid-May, when President Goodluck Jonatahn declared a state of emergency in Nigeria’s three northeastern provinces.
Analysts say that the massive deployment of Nigerian troops may have pushed the militants fighting for a breakaway Islamic state in northeast Nigeria into hiding, but failed to stop the militants from launching ever-more-deadly attacks.