Army Prevents Another Schoo Invasion In Borno

Two suspected Chadian mercenaries fighting on the side of  Boko Haram were reportedly killed on Thursday during an attack on soldiers guarding a secondary school in Gwoza local government area of Borno State, government officials said.

The gunmen, according to eyewitnesses,  crept up to the perimeter fencing of Government Secondary School, Ville, leaving their vehicles in the bush, but were luckily spotted by some students who raised the alarm for others to flee.

Ville is a little community at the outskirts of Gwoza,near Izge village, where Boko Haram attacked recently and killed over 60 villagers and burnt several houses.

According to a local council official, Mr Amos, “the alarm raised by the students had helped other soldiers and security operatives in other parts of the rocky community to mobilize down to the school where they all engaged the Boko Haram terrorists in about an hour of shooting”.

Mr Amos said the gunmen would have succeeded in ambushing and maiming the soldiers as well as the students because “they had already divided themselves around all the flanks of the school,  before they were spotted by the students”.

He said two of the attackers suspected to be Chadians, due to their light skins, were however apprehended as they were trying to flee from the superior firepower of the soldiers and policemen.

“Two of the Boko Haram members arrested appeared lanky and fair-skinned; they look more of Chadians than Nigerians. The  angry mob who went out of the control of the security operatives mobbed them and set them ablaze using used vehicle tyres,” said the council official.

He added that other suspected Boko Haram terrorists that fled escaped with their vehicles heading towards the forest around Izge.

It was gathered that soldiers were deployed to mount a post within GSS Ville after the school had suffered a major attack by Boko Haram early last year.

A senior official at the Department of State Services, who confirmed the incident to journalists but sought not to be quoted directly, said: “We recorded an attack on the school there in Ville village, near Gwoza, but our operatives were able to effectively repel it, and two of the attackers were killed during the incident.”