Nigeria school assembly hit by bomb attack leaving at least 48 dead
Boko Haram is likely to be named as responsible for the bomb in the north-east Nigerian town of Potiskum
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Your support makes all the difference.A suicide bomber dressed as a student has killed at least 48 people and left 79 injured in an attack at a school in Nigeria, with the death toll likely to rise.
The explosion happened at a boy’s science and technical school in the north-east Nigerian town of Potiskum in the Yobe state.
Students at the Government Technical Science College were rushed to hospital on Monday following the attack during a morning assembly.
The bodies of those killed all appeared to be aged between 11 and 20, a morgue attendant, who wished to remain anonymous, claimed.
"So far, the number of dead is 48, while 79 are injured. I counted the bodies, moistly students and a few teachers," a nurse at Potiskum General Hospital told Reuters news agency.
"A teacher who survived the blast with minor injuries said the bomber dressed like a student and was also on the assembly ground with other students," she said, asking to remain anonymous.
Some 2,000 students had gathered for the Monday morning assembly when the explosion blasted through the school hall, according to survivor reports.
"We were waiting for the principle to address us, around 7:30am when we heard a deafening sound and I was blown off my feet, people started creaming and running, I saw blood all over my body," 17-year-old student Musa Ibrahim Yahaya said at the hospital, where he was being treated for head wounds.
Garba Alhaji, father of one of the wounded students, claimed there was no proper security at the school. "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.
No militant group has yet taken responsibility for the attack, but police told the BBC they believe Boko Haram was behind the attack.
The militant group’s name means “Western education is a sin” and it has previously attacked schools, abducted hundreds of students and killed thousands in its five-year campaign to establish an Islamic state in the country.
Additional reporting by agencies
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