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People are treated at the General hospital in Potiskum, Nigeria. AP/Press Association Images

Suicide bomber disguised in school uniform kills 48 students at assembly

Today’s high school attack is the latest by Boko Haram militants.

DISGUISED IN A SCHOOL uniform, a suicide bomber set off explosives hidden in a backpack during an assembly today at a high school in northern Nigeria, killing at least 48 students and wounding 79 others.

It was the latest attack by suspected Boko Haram militants who kidnapped more than 200 schoolgirls earlier this year.

Soldiers rushed to the grisly scene, but were chased away by a stone-throwing crowd angry at the military’s inability to halt a 5-year-old Islamic insurgency that has targeted schools and killed thousands.

Boko Haram

The Islamic militants — whose name means “Western education is sinful” in the local Hausa language — have intensified the tempo and deadliness of attacks since the government announced last month that the group had agreed to a cease-fire and that the schoolgirls would be released imminently.

Nigeria Violence People inspect the damage roof at the site of a Suicide bomb explosion. AP / Press Association Images AP / Press Association Images / Press Association Images

Boko Haram’s leader has denied any cease-fire deal and the girls have not been set free.

Some 2,000 students had gathered for a weekly assembly at the Government Technical Science College when the explosion ripped through the school hall, survivors said.

Morning assembly 

“We were waiting for the principal to address us, around 7:30 am, when we heard a deafening sound and I was blown off my feet. People started screaming and running. I saw blood all over my body,” 17-year-old student Musa Ibrahim Yahaya said from his hospital bed, where he was being treated for head wounds.

Survivors said the bomber hid the explosives in a type of backpack popular with students. Months ago Nigeria’s military reported finding a bomb factory where explosives were being sewn into backpacks in the northern city of Kano.

Hospital records showed 48 bodies and many body parts were brought to the morgue. Seventy-nine students were admitted, many with serious injuries that may require amputations, health workers said. The hospital was so overcrowded that some patients were crammed two to a bed.

Nigeria Violence People are treated at the General hospital in Potiskum, Nigeria. AP / Press Association Images AP / Press Association Images / Press Association Images

The victims all appeared to be between the ages of 11 and 20, a morgue attendant said.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon strongly condemned the suicide bombing and expressed outrage at “the frequency and brutality of attacks against educational institutions in the north,” UN. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said.

Relentless attack on children 

“These repeated and relentless attacks on children and schools are attacks on the future of Nigeria, a country that already has the largest number of children out of school in the world,” UNICEF said.

Ban demanded an immediate halt to “these abominable crimes” and called for the perpetrators to be swiftly brought to justice and adequate security measures to protect civilians, Haq said.

The Yobe state government ordered the immediate closure of all government schools in the area.

Boko Haram attracted international outrage with the April kidnapping of 276 mostly Christian schoolgirls as they were taking exams at a boarding school in northern Nigeria. Dozens of the girls managed to escape, but 219 remain missing. Boko Haram has said that the girls have all converted to Islam and been married off to extremist fighters.

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    Mute Paul Culligan
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    Aug 17th 2015, 7:38 PM

    Must send some of me with the wife. She hasn’t moved a muscle in years.

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    Mute Al Ca
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    Aug 17th 2015, 7:35 PM

    Sick feckers!

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    Mute John Hayes
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    Aug 17th 2015, 10:07 PM

    Lad working with me was a supervisor in his last job. Russian lad working for him says the mother died needed to go home all above board so far. He returned two weeks later got chatting to your man. Would you like to see my mother he says ? Ah go on so show me the pictures. There they were all pictures with the dead mother in the casket giving thumbs up the works. He said he was disturbed for weeks after it. Some weird folk them Russians.

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    Mute Colin Moran
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    Aug 17th 2015, 8:43 PM

    The sooner this planet is taken over by a superior alien race who wipe out most of the population leaving only a rag-tag bunch of intelligent survivors, the better.

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    Mute Ian O'Donovan
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    Aug 17th 2015, 7:58 PM

    Is it just me or are there an increasing number of sociopaths in our society?

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    Mute Brian O'Donnell
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    Aug 17th 2015, 7:33 PM

    In Russia selfie takes you.

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    Mute Dreana O'Gorman
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    Aug 17th 2015, 10:24 PM

    The strange thing is, when photography first developed, there was a disturbing fad of people posing with dead loved ones. Still hasn’t stopped being creepy.

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    Mute Brian Kearns
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    Aug 18th 2015, 2:08 PM

    That “Fad” was family members posing one last time with the deceased. These stupid B******s pose with any dead person, Just for kicks.
    A female paramedic was sacked last year,After being found posing with the dead in the back of her Ambulance .

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    Mute Jacques_DaCosta
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    Aug 17th 2015, 7:56 PM

    How long before someone commits murder to win the ‘Selfie with Corpse’ competition?

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    Mute stephen
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    Aug 17th 2015, 8:03 PM

    I had to read that headline twice, looks like I’ll have to increase my medication or stop reading thejournal.

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    Mute Joanna
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    Aug 17th 2015, 8:16 PM

    Well that’s just creepy.

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    Mute Vinny Murphy
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    Aug 17th 2015, 8:06 PM

    From Russia with Love…

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    Mute Ronan McDermott
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    Aug 18th 2015, 7:06 AM

    That’s Russia for you. Jeez what will they have next . Weird, distasteful and bizarre whatever way you look at it

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