Nigeria: At least 26 college students killed in attack in Mubi town
Security forces and local residents gather at the site where a bomb blast hit in Zaria, northern Nigeria on September 30, 2012. A bomb blast and gunfire shook an area around an Islamic boarding school in northern Nigeria, leaving two of the alleged attackers dead and at least three others wounded, officials said. It was not immediately clear who was behind the blast in the city of Zaria, but Islamist extremist group Boko Haram has been blamed for hundreds of deaths as part of its insurgency in northern and central Nigeria.
At least 26 people, most of them college students, have been killed in an attack in the northeastern Nigerian town of Mubi, in Adamawa state.
Reuters quoted a college spokesman as saying that at least 26 people were killed, while the Associated Press said 27 victims were shot and stabbed in the attack.
The AP said the violence began late night Monday and continued into early Tuesday morning at a student residence near the campus of the Federal Polytechnic Mubi. The college was closed Tuesday.
Yushua Shuaib, spokesman for Nigeria's National Emergency Management Agency, told Reuters that it was not immediately clear whether the attack was by Boko Haram, or the result of a dispute between rival political groups at the college, which recently had a student election.
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On Saturday, three students were killed outside a university campus in the nearby city of Maiduguri, the AP noted.
According to Reuters, Boko Haram, the Islamist sect waging a war of terror in northern Nigeria, usually targets politicians or security forces, but has attacked students before.
The BBC said the attack comes just days after a major operation against Boko Haram in Mubi town.
Boko Haram, which means “Western education is a sin,” says it wants to impose Sharia law in Nigeria. The group has been waging an increasingly violent campaign against the Nigerian government since 2009.
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