10-year-old boy killed in Nigeria school attack

A 10-year-old boy was killed Tuesday when an assailant fired a grenade at an Islamic school in the central Nigerian city of Jos, an area plagued by sectarian violence, officials and residents said. Witnesses described a man dressed in red firing what appeared to be a rocket launcher at the school in the Bukuru area of Jos. "An Islamic school was the target of the attack," said Pam Ayuba, the spokesman for the governor of Plateau State, where Jos is the capital. Police spokesman Emmanuel Abuh said the assailant fired a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) from the Jero road that runs adjacent to the school and marks an informal dividing line between a Muslim and Christian neighbourhood in the southern part of Jos. "A 10-year-old boy was hit on the head... and he died," said Abuh, adding that the attacker successfully fled the scene. The victim was a bystander and not enrolled at the school, where students were studying for exams when they came under attack, according to locals. A resident of the targeted area said a lone attacker stood on the street outside the school as he fired. "The missile deflected and hit the wall of the school, killing" the boy, resident Murtala Abdullahi told AFP. The school, Nurul Islam, is a seminary that combines secular, Western-style education with an Islamic curriculum. Two weeks ago, a bomb discovered there was defused before it exploded, Abdullahi and other residents said. Military spokesman Salihu Mustapha told AFP the school attack happened at 10:30 am (0930 GMT), adding that the ability of a civilian to obtain a military-grade weapon like an RPG was worrying. "That is now something that we have to look into," he said. "It is not good at all." Abdullahi told AFP that the attacker escaped into the nearby Christian neighbourhood, but officials could not confirm that account. After the shooting, rival youth mobs set up barricades on the road but the military intervened before clashes erupted, Mustapha said. The governor's spokesman charged that the "attack is a deliberate effort to distract the security services." Initial reports had suggested a local government building near the school was the target. Tension is high in Plateau state after the military revealed plans to launch campaigns to root out gunmen suspected of belonging to a mainly Muslim group of herdsmen accused of killing more than 100 people earlier this month. On July 7, gunmen suspected of belonging to the Fulani tribe stormed mainly Christian villages and killed more than 80 people. Another 22 people, including two senior politicians, were killed the following day in an attack on the funeral of the previous day's victims, also blamed on the Fulani. Fulani pastoralists have long-standing grievances against the state's mainly Christian leaders, including disputes over land rights and claims of discrimination. Jos has also been struck by the radical Islamist group Boko Haram, responsible for scores of attacks in northern and central Nigeria since mid-2009. Aside from violence involving the Fulani, Jos has for several years seen sporadic clashes between Muslim and Christian groups, which have left thousands dead. Plateau state is in Nigeria's "Middle Belt" region, on the dividing line between the mainly Christian south and majority Muslim north in Africa's most populous country. Amid the security crisis, political and security leaders, including Governor Jonah Jang, held a meeting in Jos on Monday. They declared "that Plateau state is under siege" in a statement issued after the talks and said more dialogue between key leaders of both dominant faiths was needed to stem the violence.