{"id":38344,"date":"2013-09-30T17:00:23","date_gmt":"2013-09-30T13:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/?p=38344"},"modified":"2013-09-30T17:00:23","modified_gmt":"2013-09-30T13:00:23","slug":"dozens-of-students-shot-dead-in-their-beds-as-islamist-militants-storm-through-college-dorms-in-northern-nigeria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/en\/?p=38344","title":{"rendered":"Dozens of students shot dead in their beds as Islamist militants storm through college dorms in northern Nigeria"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Gunmen killed at least 40 people today in an attack on a college in northeast Nigeria, witnesses say, in a region where Islamist militants have targeted schools and universities.<\/h1>\n

Islamist sect Boko Haram has intensified attacks on civilian targets in recent weeks in reaction to a military offensive against its insurgency.<\/p>\n

Boko Haram and spin-off Islamist groups like the al Qaeda-linked Ansaru have become the biggest security threat to the nation which is also Africa’s second largest economy and top oil exporter.<\/p>\n

Gunmen stormed the College of Agriculture in Yobe state and shot students as they slept in the early hours of this morning, state police commissioner Sanusi Rufai said.<\/p>\n

They also set fire to classrooms, a military spokesman in Yobe state, Lazarus Eli, told Agence France-Presse.<\/p>\n

One witness counted 40 bodies at the main hospital in Yobe state capital Damaturu, and politicians claim that victims, most of whom were young men, were taken in van loads.<\/p>\n

Boko Haram is fighting to overthrow Nigeria’s government to create an Islamic state, and has launched a number of attacks on schools including a raid which killed 27 students and a teacher at a school in Potiskum, a town about 30 miles from the site of today’s attack.<\/p>\n

The group’s name translates as ‘Western education is forbidden’ and regard schools as a symbol of Western culture.<\/p>\n

Across Nigeria thousands have been killed since Boko Haram launched its uprising against the state in 2009, turning itself from a clerical movement opposed to Western culture into an armed militia with growing links to al Qaeda’s West African wing.<\/p>\n

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