Abuja: At least 26 people, mostly students, were killed in an attack carried out by unidentified men in a student housing area of northeast Nigeria on Tuesday.
According to media reports, the miscreants called victims out by name before shooting them or slitting their throats during an attack occurred in the early hours in the town of Mubi, where the military last week carried out a high-profile raid against Islamist extremist group Boko Haram, which has been waging a deadly insurgency.
Although the militant group Boko Haram has been blamed for such massacres in the past but some Nigerian officials however suggest that the massacre may have been linked to a recent student election.
Rescue officials speaking on condition of anonymity said that 26 people had been confirmed dead and 15 were wounded and taken to hospital. The military had taken over the area.
There were suggestions of ethnic tensions between the mainly Muslim Hausas and predominately Christian Igbos involved in the vote.
Violence has erupted between student gangs in the past in Nigeria, but it is not known to have previously led to a massacre on such a scale.
Nigerian officials have been seeking to show success in the fight against Boko Haram with a number of raids and arrests. There had been a lull in major attacks in recent weeks.
Mubi is not far from the city of Maiduguri in neighbouring Borno state, which is considered the base of the Islamist group that is blamed for killing more than 1,400 people in northern and central Nigeria since 2010.
The town has seen previous such violence, including in January, when gunmen opened fire on Christian Igbos at a house as they mourned the death of a friend killed in a shooting the night before.
Boko Haram has claimed to be seeking an Islamic state in Nigeria’s mainly Muslim north, but its demands have repeatedly shifted and it is believed to include a number of factions with varying aims.
Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation and largest oil producer, is roughly divided between a mainly Muslim north and predominately Christian south.
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