The Nigerian terrorist organization Boko Haram has been blamed for attacking an agricultural college in the middle of the night, gunning down close 50 students as they slept in their dormitories, the school's provost said, as reported by The Associated Press. The group later torched their classrooms.
According to reports, there were no security forces protecting the college, even as the state commissioner for education "had begged schools and college to repopen and promised they would be guarded by soldiers and police," The AP also reported.
"The attacked our students while they were sleeping in their hostels. They opened fire at them," Provost Ido Mato said, adding that most of the victims were between the ages of 18 and 22.
Reports said that the terrorists "rode into the college in two double-cabin pickup all-terrain vehicles and on motorcycles, some dressed in Nigerian military uniforms, a surviving student," Ibrahim Mohammed, told the AP.
The group appeared to know the layout of the college, attacking the four male hostels but avoiding the one hostel reserved for women, The AP also reported.
Nigerian soliders recovered 42 bodies, and sent 18 wounded students to Damaturu Specialist Hospital, but two of those transported to the hospital later died.
While condemning the attack, President Goodluck Jonathan compared the assault to the assault at the Nairobi shopping mall where Somalia's al-Shabaab terrorist group killed 67 civilians. Boko Haram, like al has said some of its fighters trained with al Shabaab.
"Although there is an increase in troop movement and military hardware deployment in the northeast, people are yet to see the kind of action on the ground that effectively nips criminal and terrorist activities in the bud," Governor Ibrahim Gaidam of Yobe said.
The attacks come just as Nigeria prepared to celebrate its 53rd year of independence.
Boko Haram remains hellbent on instituting an Islamic State for all of Nigeria, and using whatever deadly means to achieving it.
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