Gunmen kill 30 in Nigeria school attack.

A file screengrab taken from a video released
 on You Tube on April 12, 2012 apparently shows Boko
 Haram leader Abubakar Shekau (C) sitting flanked
 by militants.— Photo by AFP

POTISKUM |AP | 06 Jul 2013 ::  Militants attacked a boarding school before dawn Saturday, dousing a dormitory in fuel and lighting it ablaze as students slept, survivors said.

At least 30 people were killed in the deadliest attack yet on schools in Nigeria's embattled northeast.

Authorities blamed the violence on Boko Haram, a radical group whose name means ''Western education is sacrilege.''

The militants have been behind a series of recent attacks on schools in the region, including one in which gunmen opened fire on children taking exams in a classroom.

''We were sleeping when we heard gunshots. When I woke up, someone was pointing a gun at me,'' Musa Hassan, 15, told The Associated Press of the assault on Government Secondary School in Mamudo village in Yobe state.

He put his arm up in defense, and suffered a gunshot that blew off all four fingers on his right hand, the one he uses to write. His life was spared when the militants moved on after shooting him.

Hassan recalled how the gunmen came armed with jerry cans of fuel that they used to torch the school's administrative block and one of the dormitories.

''They burned the children alive,'' he said, the horror showing in his wide eyes.

He and teachers at the morgue said dozens of children from the 1,200-student school escaped into the bush but have not been seen since.

On Saturday, at the morgue of Potiskum General Hospital, a few miles kilometers from the scene of the attack, parents screamed in anguish as they attempted to identify the victims, many charred beyond recognition.

Some parents do not know if their children survived or died.

Farmer Malam Abdullahi found the bodies of two of his sons, a 10-year-old shot in the back as he apparently tried to run away, and a 12-year-old shot in the chest.

''The gunmen are attacking schools and there is no protection for students despite all the soldiers,'' he said as he wept over the two corpses. He said he is withdrawing his three remaining sons from another school.(Courtesy:Dawn)Read More>>>