Nigeria Arrests 'Many' After Student Massacre Leaves 49 Dead
https://nigeriaafrica1.blogspot.com/2012/10/nigeria-arrests-after-student-massacre.html
Nigerian police said Wednesday they had arrested many suspects following a massacre at a student housing area that left at least 49 people dead, with victims shot or their throats slit.
The raid in the early hours of Tuesday near a polytechnic university shook the town of Mubi in Nigeria's volatile northeast, where Islamist extremist group Boko Haram has carried out scores of previous attacks.
Last week in Mubi, Nigeria's military conducted a high-profile raid targeting the group, killing a senior Boko Haram figure and arresting 156 suspected members.
President Goodluck Jonathan called the gruesome off-campus attack "sad and shocking" and ordered an investigation, but its motives remained unclear, with some officials suggesting it may have been linked to a recent student election.
"We have made several arrests -- in fact we have arrested many suspects in connection with the killing," said police spokesman Mohammed Ibrahim, declining to give details.
A school official said on condition of anonymity that most of those arrested were students, including those seeking to flee Mubi.
Nigerian soldiers moved house to house Wednesday in an urgent bid to hunt down the attackers.
Police have given an official death toll of 25, saying at least 22 victims were students. The school official said that the death toll was at least 49, but he could not immediately say how many were students.
"Based on accounts from locals, at least 49 people were killed in the attack," the official from the polytechnic school said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak publicly.
Ibrahim said security forces had blanketed Mubi, a commercial hub and university town located near the border with Cameroon in Nigeria's Adamawa state.
According to Ibrahim, the attackers knew their victims and called them out by name in a student housing area off-campus of Federal Polytechnic Mubi, an ethnically mixed school with several thousand students.
News Source: AFP
Last week in Mubi, Nigeria's military conducted a high-profile raid targeting the group, killing a senior Boko Haram figure and arresting 156 suspected members.
President Goodluck Jonathan called the gruesome off-campus attack "sad and shocking" and ordered an investigation, but its motives remained unclear, with some officials suggesting it may have been linked to a recent student election.
"We have made several arrests -- in fact we have arrested many suspects in connection with the killing," said police spokesman Mohammed Ibrahim, declining to give details.
A school official said on condition of anonymity that most of those arrested were students, including those seeking to flee Mubi.
Nigerian soldiers moved house to house Wednesday in an urgent bid to hunt down the attackers.
Police have given an official death toll of 25, saying at least 22 victims were students. The school official said that the death toll was at least 49, but he could not immediately say how many were students.
"Based on accounts from locals, at least 49 people were killed in the attack," the official from the polytechnic school said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak publicly.
Ibrahim said security forces had blanketed Mubi, a commercial hub and university town located near the border with Cameroon in Nigeria's Adamawa state.
According to Ibrahim, the attackers knew their victims and called them out by name in a student housing area off-campus of Federal Polytechnic Mubi, an ethnically mixed school with several thousand students.
News Source: AFP
