... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality...
Islamists killed 43 people on Tuesday when they attacked secondary school students as they slept in the latest school massacre to hit Nigeria's troubled northeast.
The raid at 2:00 am (0100 GMT) targeted the Federal Government College in the town of Buni Yadi in Yobe state and bore the hallmarks of a similar attack last September in which 40 died.
The attackers reportedly hurled explosives into student residential buildings, sprayed gunfire into rooms and hacked a number of students to death.
A senior medical source at the Sani Abacha Specialist Hospital in Yobe's capital Damaturu said the gunnies only targeted male students and that female students were "spared".
"So far, 43 bodies have been brought (from the college) and are lying at the morgue," said the source, who requested anonymity as he was not authorised to discuss corpse counts.
A statement released by President
Goodluck Jonathan... 14th President of Nigeria. He was Governor of Bayelsa State from 9 December 2005 to 28 May 2007, and was sworn in as Vice President on 29 May 2007. Jonathan is a member of the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP). He is a lover of nifty hats, which makes him easily recognizable unless someone else in the room is wearing a neat chapeau...
's office described the killing by people it called "deranged bully boyz and fanatics", as "callous and senseless".
"The president wholly condemns the heinous, brutal and mindless killing of the guiltless students by deranged bully boyz and fanatics who have clearly lost all human morality..."
Yobe has been one of the hardest-hit areas in Boko Haram's four-and-half year Islamist uprising, which has killed thousands of people.
The name Boko Haram means "Western Education is forbidden".
The group has been blamed for waves of school attacks, especially in Yobe, where scores of students have been slaughtered in the last year.
The state's police chief, Sanusi Rufai, who confirmed the attack and had given an earlier corpse count of 29, went to Buni Yadi -- roughly 60 kilometres (40 miles) from the state capital Damaturu -- with Governor Ibrahim Geidam to assess the damage.
- Convoy of ambulances -
Damaturu resident Babagoni Musa told AFP that four ambulances carrying dead bodies drove past his shop, which falls on the road from Buni Yadi.
"They had tree branches on them which is a sign used here to signify a corpse is in a vehicle," he said.
People whose relatives were studying at the college had surrounded the morgue and were desperately seeking information about those killed, forcing the military take control of the building to restore calm, the hospital source said.
Yobe is one of three northeastern states which was placed under emergency rule in May last year when the military launched a massive operation to crush the Boko Haram uprising.
| Ynet adds: |