Nearly 50 Nigerian students were killed Monday morning after a suicide bombing at a high school in the northeastern state of Yobe, authorities said.
Witnesses said a suicide bomber dressed in a school uniform detonated the bomb as some 2,000 students gathered for a weekly assembly at the Government Technical Science College in Potiskum city, the Associated Press reported.
"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," Musa Ibrahim Yahaya, a 17-year-old student at the all-boys school, told the news agency from a hospital.
At least 48 students were killed in the blast, an unnamed morgue attendant told the AP. The victims appeared to be between the ages of 11 and 15. Another 79 were left wounded.
The attack is similar to previous ones that have been blamed on Boko Haram, the Islamist militant group that has killed thousands ever since it waged a violent campaign to form an Islamic state in 2009.
An attack on a Yobe state boarding school in February left almost 30 students dead. Another raid on a boarding school in the Borno state village of Chibok in April saw nearly 300 schoolgirls kidnapped, most of whom are still missing.
Boko Haram, which means "Western education is forbidden" in the Hausa language, believes girls should not attend school, and that boys should only learn about Islam, the BBC reported.
As of Monday, Boko Haram has not claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing.
Soldiers arrived at the school to help, but were pelted with stones thrown by locals outraged over what they call the government and the military's insufficient response to the deadly attacks, the AP reported.
"The government needs to be more serious about the fight against Boko Haram because it is getting out of control," an unnamed man whose 16-year-old brother died told the BBC.
