Gunmen attack school, kill 42, 1,000 missing •I’m withdrawing my other sons, bereaved father wails

Tambuwal, others condemn attack
Gunmen suspected to be members of the Boko Haram insurgent group killed 42 people, mostly students, in an overnight attack on Government Secondary School at Mamudo, in Yobe State, a medical worker and residents said on Saturday.
But police authorities claimed only 29 pupils and one teacher were killed in the attack, while condemnations from eminent Nigerians like Honourable Aminu  Tambuwal, have trailed the action.
Parents, according to agency reports, screamed in anguish as they tried to identify the charred and gunshot victims.
A farmer, Malam Abdullahi, the Associated Press reported, found the bodies of two of his sons, a 10-year-old shot in the back as he apparently tried to run away, and a 12-year-old shot in the chest.
“That’s it. I’m taking my other boys out of school,” he said as he wept over the two corpses. He said he had three younger children in a nearby school.
“It’s not safe,” he said. “The gunmen are attacking schools and there is no protection for students despite all the soldiers.”
The medical worker, Haliru Aliyu of the Potiskum General Hospital, who spoke to AFP, said over 40 corpses were received in the hospital: “We received 42 dead bodies of students and other staff of Government Secondary School (in) Mamudo last night. Some of them had gunshot wounds while many of them had burns and ruptured tissues,” Aliyu related.
Mamudo is some five kilometres from Potiskum, the commercial hub of Yobe State which has been a flashpoint in the Boko Haram insurgency in recent months.
“From accounts of teachers and other students who escaped the attack, the gunmen gathered their victims in a hostel and threw explosives and opened fire, leading to the death of 42,” Aliyu said.
He said security personnel were combing the bushes around the school in search of students who were believed to have escaped with gunshot wounds.
“So far six students have been found and are now in the hospital being treated for gunshot wounds,” he added.
An English teacher, Mohammed Musa, was shot in the chest, according to another teacher, Ibrahim Abdu.
One of the survivors, Musa Hassan, 15, recounted his ordeal to AP: “We were sleeping when we heard gunshots. When I woke up, someone was pointing a gun at me.”
He said he was lucky to have survived as he had put his arm up in defence and suffered a gunshot wound that blew off all four fingers on his right hand, the one he writes with.
He said the gunmen came armed with jerrycans of fuel that they used to torch the school’s administrative block and one of the hostels.
“They burned the children alive,” he said, the horror showing in his wide eyes.
He and teachers at the morgue said dozens of children from the 1,200-student school escaped into the bush but have not been seen since.
A local resident, who did not want to be named, confirmed the attack.
“It was a gory sight. People who went to the hospital and saw the bodies shed tears. There were 42 bodies, most of them were students. Some of them had parts of their bodies blown off and badly burnt while others had gunshot wounds,” he said.
He said the attack was believed to be a reprisal by the Boko Haram Islamists for the killing of 22 sect members during a military raid in the town of Dogon Kuka on Thursday.
Suspected Islamist militants opened fire on a school in Nigeria’s northeastern city of Maiduguri last month, killing nine students, and a similar attack on a school in the city of Damaturu killed seven just days earlier.
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