By
Adamu Adamu and Michelle Faul
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POTISKUM,
Nigeria (AP) — A suicide bomber disguised in a school uniform detonated
explosives at a high school assembly in the northeastern Nigerian city of
Potiskum on Monday, killing at least 48 students, according to survivors and a
morgue attendant.
Soldiers
rushed to the scene, grisly with body parts, in the capital of Yobe state, but
they were chased away by a crowd throwing stones and shouting that they are
angry at the military's inability to halt a 5-year-old Islamic insurgency that
has killed thousands and driven hundreds of thousands from their homes.
A
suicide bomb attack in the same city killed 30 people one week ago, when
suspected Boko Haram fighters attacked a religious procession of moderate
Muslims.
Some 2,000 students had gathered for Monday morning's weekly assembly at the
Government Technical Science College when the explosion blasted through the
school hall, according to survivors.
"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 the general hospital, where he was being treated for head
wounds.
Hospital
records show 79 students were admitted and health workers said they include
serious injuries that may require amputations. The hospital was so overcrowded
that some patients were squashed two to a bed.
A
morgue attendant said 48 bodies were brought to the hospital and all appeared
to be between the ages of 11 and 20 years old. He spoke on condition of
anonymity because he is not authorized to give information to reporters.
Survivors
said the bomber appeared to have hidden the explosives in a type of rucksack
popular with students. Months ago Nigeria's military had reported finding a
bomb factory where explosives were being sewn into rucksacks in the northern
city of Kano.
Garba
Alhaji, father of one of the wounded students, said the school did not have
proper security. "I strongly blame the Yobe state government for not
fencing the college," he said, adding that just three months ago a bomb
was discovered in the school and removed by an anti-bomb squad.
The
federal government of President Goodluck Jonathan, who is running for
re-election in February, also had promised more security for schools in the
northeast.
Boko
Haram — the name means "Education is sinful" in the local Hausa
language — attracted international outrage with the April kidnappings of 276
mostly Christian schoolgirls writing exams at a northeastern boarding school.
Dozens escaped on their own but 219 remain missing. Boko Haram has said that
the schoolgirls have all converted to Islam and been married off to extremist
fighters.
Many
Nigerians are angry that Boko Haram has increased attacks and bombings since
Oct. 17 when the government claimed to have brokered a cease-fire. Boko Haram
leader Abubakar Shekau has denied negotiating a truce.
Faul
reported from Johannesburg.
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