Assailants shot and stabbed to death
at least 20 students in the second attack suspected to be carried out by
Islamist extremists on colleges in Nigeria's troubled northeast in the
last few days, authorities said Tuesday.
Some of the victims of Monday night's attack
were shot and others were killed with knives just outside the Federal
Polytechnic Mubi, a college in the town of Mubi, said a rescue official
who is not allowed to speak to press on the issue. He said that at least
20 corpses had been found.
Danjuma Aiso, a student at the college, said
assailants attacked rented accommodation outside the campus between 10
p.m. Monday and 3 a.m. Tuesday and that he fled to the university
campus.
He said students were recently warned to leave
the college in a statement suspected to have been written by the
radical Islamist sect known as Boko Haram.
The attack follows the killing Saturday of
three students outside a university campus about 100 miles away in
Maiduguri, Boko Haram's spiritual home.
Ahmed Mohammed, a spokesman for the University
of Maiduguri, said Monday the university was aware of the attack but
that he could not comment as it occurred off school premises.
Boko Haram has launched frequent attacks in Maiduguri and, to a lesser degree, in Mubi.
The extremist sect claimed responsibility last
month for the destruction of more than 30 phone towers across Nigeria's
north, including Maiduguri and Mubi. Those attacks left at least two
dead in Mubi, police said, and created communications chaos in a nation
that relies on mobile phones.
Boko Haram's deadly campaign has targeted
mosques, churches, schools, and government security buildings, and more
recently multi-million dollar telecommunications infrastructure, but
targeting students off campus is new.
Boko Haram's name means "Western education is
sacrilege" in Hausa and the group has been blamed for killing more than
690 people this year alone, according to an Associated Press count. The
group wants the federal government to release its imprisoned members and
implement strict Shariah law across Nigeria, which is largely divided
into a Christian south and a Muslim north.
AP