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| Police Headquarters |
By Michael Olugbode in Maiduguri
The deadly Boko Haram sect, which many thought had been
routed by the ongoing clampdown by the military, struck again in Damaturu, the
Yobe State capital, on Sunday night launching attacks on a secondary school and
military checkpoint, which resulted in the death of 11 persons and injury of
nine others.
Confirming the incident to journalists, the spokesman of the
military Joint Task Force (JTF) in Yobe State, Lt. Eli Lazarus, said 11 people
were killed in separate attacks as suspected members of the Boko Haram sect
attacked the Government Secondary School (GSS), Damaturu and a military
checkpoint, also in Damaturu.
Lazarus, in a statement yesterday, disclosed that two
teachers and two insurgents were killed during the separate attacks, which
equally led to the death of seven innocent students.
He also revealed that apart from the 11 killed; three
soldiers were critically injured in the clash that lasted for over five hours.
Lazarus also said three of the suspected Boko Haram members,
who launched the attacks, were caught alive and were in the custody of the JTF.
The medical officer of the Damaturu Specialist Hospital, Dr.
Salem M Umar, also confirmed the incident, explaining that 11 corpses were
brought to the hospital.
He said seven students of GSS Damaturu, two teachers of the
school and two members of the Boko Haram sect were brought in dead.
He told journalists last night that six other students
sustained varied degrees of injuries and were receiving treatment at the
Damaturu Specialist Hospital.
Some of the survivors of the attacks, Mohammed Ya’u (SS3
student), Abdulkadir Mohammed (SS2) and Goni Abubakar (SS1), who spoke to
journalists in Damaturu, said the suspected insurgents stormed their hostels a
few minutes after 9 pm on Sunday and started shooting sporadically, and that
they had to flee through the windows and doors of the school.
The insurgents, who they said were more than a dozen in
number, also compelled some of the students to direct them to the teachers’
quarters, which they stormed to kill the teachers.
Sunday's attacks ended nine months of relative peace enjoyed
in Damaturu, which recently led to the state government's decision to reduce
the curfew imposed on the town.
The attacks resulted in heavy security screening of
commuters in the town Monday.
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