KANO – A suicide attentat- made Monday at least 47 dead and 79 wounded among the school students of northeastern Nigeria, told AFP the police, who accused the Islamist armed group Boko Haram.

“There has been an explosion caused by a suicide bomber” in a school of Potiskum in Yobe state, said Emmanuel Ojukwu, spokesman of the Nigerian police. “There are 47 dead and 79 wounded” among students, he has said, adding that Boko Haram was suspected of being responsible for the massacre.

The explosion occurred in a public school-high school boys Potiskum, the economic capital of Yobe state, when the principal of the institution was about to speak to teenagers, all gathered before classes begin, as a teacher and a member of the rescue team.

“The students had gathered for the meeting in the morning when something exploded in their midst with a thunderous noise at exactly 7 am 50,” said a teacher who requested anonymity.

A local resident, Alkassim Adamu, described a great confusion in and around the school, describing blood stains which were lying in the middle of abandoned shoes.

Yobe is one of three states under martial law for a year and a half because of the bloody insurgency by the Islamist group, which has claimed more than 10,000 dead in five years.

Boko Haram, whose name means “Western education is sinful” in Hausa, has conducted numerous attacks against schools which, he believes, provide education influenced by Western values.

Especially in February, gunmen opened fire and threw explosives into the dormitory of a boarding school in Buni Yadi, also in Yobe state, killing at least 40 adolescents.