More Nigerian Trouble

More Nigerian Trouble

      You are found in the hospital in a small bed that can barely hold you. All around the small room, there are many other students just like you with grave injuries in beds. As the number of students being admitted to the hospital grows, the place has become so overcrowded that there are sometimes 2 in a bed. You cannot seem to remember what happened to you so you ask your friend, who is in the bed beside you. She explains about how your university was bombed and many students have died. This happened to the Yobe state in Nigeria, where violence like this has been common for a consecutive 5 years.


Only some of the rubble of the university is shown

      On November 10, 2000 students gathered for a weekly assembly, waiting for the principal to speak to them when a suicide bomber blew himself up on Monday. 48 students were killed and 79 are injured. The bombings came a a week after a suicide attack in Potiskum, capital of Yobe state, killing 30. The 79 injured students have been admitted to a hospital, where the injuries are so severe that some may require amputations. The hospital is so overcrowded that some patients are crammed 2 to a bed.



A funeral is organized for the victims of the suicide bomb explosion

"We were waiting for the principal to address us, around 7:30 a.m., 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 hospital bed as he was being treated for head wounds.

      It is suspected that the bombing was related to the Nigerian Islamic Group Boko Haram, the same group who kidnapped school girls in April and have now sold them off as wives. Boko Haram has targeted school during a 5-year insurgency aimed at establishing an Islamic State. The bomber was disguised as a university student in school uniform. It was reported that he had tried to hide explosives in the pupil's backpacks. Luckily, the Nigerian military had found the explosives sowed into the book bags and have been disarmed.

      The school has been criticized by many angry parents, who claim that they should have fenced the school in and should have kept a better watch on the students. Many are even angry at the President Goodluck Johnathan, who has been silent through the ordeal. The Yobe State Government has ordered immediate closure of all government schools near the destroyed school areas. But will this stop Boko Haram, who terrorizes others and still runs free throughout Nigeria.

Sources for this article were found on abcnewsgo.com, bbc.com and on news.yahoo.com