Boko Haram Checked Our Private Parts- Victims
More students and residents of the Federal Government College, Buni Yadi, Gujba Local Government of Yobe State, where members of Boko Haram laid ambush and massacred 53 students on Tuesday have narrated their ordeals while the Boko Haram lasted hours on the fateful day.
Not long before the gruesome attack, the students of
Federal Government College, FGC, Bunu Yadi in Yobe State had returned
from a mid-term break sharing stories with each other, not knowing what
awaited them.
One of the survivors, who is the college’s Kitchen Prefect, said
that all 53 students of the SS3 class stayed behind to read for their
mock examination and had gone half-way. He narrated that on the night of
the attack, they had group supper at the school Dining Hall:
“After dinner, we were having prep when we heard gunshots, even
though we didn’t think
much of it as security operatives in the area
normally give warning shots most evenings. I nevertheless I advised the
junior students to return to their hostels and sleep.”
At about 11:15pm the students noticed suspicious movement around
the premises and after some of them shouted for help, confusion took
over, all with the backdrop of most of the school on fire. The Kitchen
Prefect revealed that the last thing he heard before escaping into a
nearby bush, were the screams for help from his fellow students. He
disclosed that it still haunts him: “It is the worst thing one could
ever imagine,” he narrated, in tears.
A staff of the school, who requested anonymity, described how the
incidents unfolded that tragic night: “We caught a dirty-looking man
spying the school area on Sunday around 2:00am, very close to the Vice
Principal’s house, so handed him over to security personnel, but he was
released after pleading that he had simply lost his way.”
He added that on Monday afternoon around 2:00pm a helicopter
hovered above the school and eventually left. “We also noticed the
military check-point was deserted,” he said, adding that the attackers
drove into the school playing loud, nondescript music in nine Hi-Lux
trucks, motorcycles and sophisticated weapons. “They trapped the
students in their hostels and that’s how the tragedy began,” he said.
Additional sources disclosed that teachers, parents and residents
swooped in to rescue the youngsters, long before a medical team arrived
from Damaturu to tend to the wounded and evacuate the slain.
Alhaji Mohammed Kati Machina, the school’s PTA Chairman, said a
total of twenty-nine corpses of students were recovered after the
attack.
A JSS2 student who only gave his nickname as ‘Goni’ said it began
to unfold when he was returning from prep and saw a strange, young man.
“He held a gun, advancing towards our room, so I dashed in and quickly
hid under my bed,” he said, adding that the armed man suddenly began to
shoot sporadically. “When I realized he was shooting towards my
direction, I ran out, straight at him and he grabbed me and told me he’d
not shoot me,” he said, after which he was taken to the mosque area to
join some young students.
Goni saw most of his classmates there, who told him they were
screened before taken there. “They checked our private parts and armpits
and confirmed that we didn’t have hair there,” he said, as he further
revealed that the assailants took mattresses and curtains and used them
as inflammables to raze the school buildings. “We all lay flat, until
they were done around 4:00am and two of them returned and asked that one
of us should come,” he said, but none of them did, so he volunteered.
One of the gunmen then gave him a flashlight and warned them to keep still when military men arrive, so they’ll not be shot. Goni
said the gunmen warned that they should all stay off school, especially
the girls. “They said they should get married or risk being killed
whenever they return,” he said.
Mohammad, a JSS 3 student who sustained a bullet wound on his
back, said the attackers were close to 100 and some of them came in
through the girl’s hostels. “They even apologized when they realized it
was a girls’ hostel.
Yobe State Police Commissioner, Sanusi A. Rufai confirmed that
all the 29 killed were male students. “None of the female students were
killed,” he said.
The father of two of the students killed cried profusely while
retrieving their corpses from the hospital, and he said that he loves
his children more than anything on Earth, “But, God loves them more and
He knows why they died in these circumstances.”
Another man in Damaturu Specialist Hospital was standing at a
distance from his son, one of the survivors who sustained a bullet wound
and a cut on his throat, and he was shedding tears. “I can’t imagine
why anyone would do this to innocent children…my boy wouldn’t do
anything to harm anyone…he’s just a child for God’s sake,” he cried,
even as hospital staff consoled him.
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