Gunmen attack Bauchi school, kill five-year-old girl

The police in Bauchi State said suspected gunmen set ablaze some houses in the staff quarters of the Government Girls' Secondary School, Yana, killing a five-year old girl on Sunday.

The police spokesperson in the state, DSP Haruna Mohammed, told the News Agency of Nigeria on Sunday in Bauchi that the gunmen also burnt a telecommunication mast in the town.

He said they stole a private car belonging to the principal of the school.

"Unknown gunmen attacked the staff quarters of GGSS Yana, Shira Local Government Area of the state, around 2.30 a.m. on Sunday.

"They set the school bus ablaze; and in the process, a five-year-old girl was killed in the fire while they destroyed the vault of a bank,'' he said.

According to Mohammed, a combined team of security forces are on the trail of the attackers.

NAN recalled that on April 17, the police said a team of security forces foiled an attack by some unknown gunmen on Misau town, Misau Local Government Area of the state.

Meanwhile, the police in Taraba State has said that 21 people were killed in the deadly clash between the Jukun and some Fulani herdsmen in Wukari on Thursday.

Our correspondent gathered that the attacks had spilled to  other neighbouring villages in  Gindin Doruwa and Sukundi communities.

Though the police said only 21 people died in the attack, unnamed  Red Cross sources said that they counted more than 47 corpses brought to Wukari General Hospital.

The same source had put the death at 25, while the police said that only seven people died from the clashes.

An official of the Nigeria Red Cross, who didn't want his name in print, told newsmen when the state acting Governor,  Alhaji Garba Umar, visited the scene on Friday, that more than 47 bodies were taken to the hospital while villagers said that 105 others had not been accounted for.

But the Police Public Relations Officer, Joseph Kwaji, an Assistant Superintendent of Police,   told journalists at Wukari that 21 were killed, 24 arrested, 34 injured, and 99 houses razed but declined comment on the missing figures.

Kwaji also said that  two units of the anti-riot police squad drafted from different parts of the state had been drafted to Wukari to beef up security in the area, adding that those arrested were in  police  custody and would  soon be charged to court.

Umar, who expressed shock at the extent of destruction in the area, called for calm.

While on a visit to the palace of the paramount ruler, the Aku-Uka,  Dr. Shekarau Angyu Masa Ibi Kuvyo II, Umar implored the people to put an end to the killings.

The Acting Governor, while pleading with youths to embrace peace, further reminded them of government good intention to provide jobs for the jobless people in the area so that they would not be used to perpetuate violence.

Earlier, the monarch and the council's caretaker chairman,  Manasseh Zando, had appealed to the state and the Federal Government to draft more security personnel to the area.

They expressed fear that  the situation might deteriorate if urgent steps were not taken to contain the warring youths.