A suicide bomber dressed as a student killed at least 48 people, most of them students, and injured 79 others at a school assembly in Potiskum on Monday, a hospital official said.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack in Yobe State, a territory close to the stronghold of Boko Haram Sunni Muslim militants, who have staged a five-year insurgency.
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“So far, the number of the dead is 48, while 79 are injured. I counted the bodies, mostly students and a few teachers,” a nurse at Potiskum General Hospital told Reuters.
“A teacher who survived the blast with minor injury said the bomber dressed like a student and was also on the assembly ground with the students,” she said, asking to remain anonymous.
Mariam Ibrahim, a teacher at the Government Science Secondary School (GSS) in Potiskum told Reuters the bomb went off as she was arriving and students were at morning assembly.
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Potiskum resident Aliyu Abubakar said he heard the explosion when he was dropping off his two sons at a nearby Islamic college. “One of my sons fell down, I came out dragged him in and we drove off back home,” he said.
A second teacher, asking to remain anonymous, said, “There are some (others) that are critically injured and I am sure the death toll will rise.”
Boko Haram has intensified its attacks in the past few weeks since a purported ceasefire agreement, announced by the Nigerian government, was later rejected by the group’s leader in a video.
