YOBE COLLEGE MASSACRE: Surviving Victims Recount Their Ordeal

Some Survivors of the attack by Boko Haram at Federal Government College, Buni Yadi in Yobe State, have spoken about their ordeal during the attack.

The United Nations on Wednesday joined prominent Nigerians and groups in condemning the gruesome killing of schoolchildren in the Federal Government College, Buni Yadi in Yobe State by Boko Haram insurgents.

Aliyu Ayuba, a JSS 3 student, fled the scene with a bullet in his back. He said the assailants; young men and boys in military uniforms and plain clothes, ordered the students to gather in one place and started shooting sporadically. Aliyu added that all his roommates were killed and burnt inside the hostel.


Another survivor said, “I was shot in my left leg, while I was sleeping. When I woke up, I could not walk and was later taken to the girls’ hostel where the insurgents gathered us with the female students. They selected some of the female students and went away with them, while they left some of us groaning in pain from gunshots.”

A teacher, Mallam Samaila Idris, narrated how the attackers drove into the school premises in nine Hilux vans at around midnight on Monday; their bloody operation lasted for over five hours.

He said that those who stayed at the school thought the assailants were military personnel, until the shooting started. Idris added that those in the staff quarters fled before the terrorists started the fire.

Before the National Human Rights Commission, the Nigerian Bar Association, the Arewa Consultative Forum, the Jama’atu Nasril Islam, the Northern Elders Forum, the President of the Senate, David Mark, the Speaker, House of Representatives, Aminu Tambuwal, and the Prelate, Methodist Church of Nigeria, Dr. Chukwuemeka Uche, reacted, a state hospital official said the death toll had risen from 43 to 59.

“Fresh bodies have been brought in. More bodies were discovered in the bush after the students who had escaped with bullet wounds died from their injuries,” Bala Ajiya of the Damaturu Specialist Hospital said late on Wednesday.

Ajiya added that the school’s 24 buildings, including staff quarters, were completely burned to the ground by the attackers during the onslaught.

Earlier on Wednesday, the Senate Committee on Defence and Army had passed a resolution directing the Chief of Army Staff, Lt-Gen. Kenneth Minimah, to relocate his office to Borno State in order to effectively monitor the war against the insurgents in the North –East.







Nigerian Eye