The massacre in Mubi on Tuesday October 2 took place in an off-campus hostel.

No fewer than 48 students of three tertiary institutions in Mubi town in the north-eastern Nigerian State of Adamawa were shot or stabbed to death by unknown gunmen in the early hours of Tuesday October 2. The Guardian newspaper said over 50 other people were wounded in the coordinated, commando-style attacks.

Meanwhile, students have been fleeing the town as an indefinite curfew has been imposed and the affected schools temporarily closed. The AFP news agency reported that soldiers yesterday October 3 conducted house-to-house searches in an urgent bid to hunt down the masterminds of the attacks. Authorities announced they had launched investigations into the gruesome killings as all military, security and intelligence chiefs from the state capital, Yola, had redeployed to Mubi to find out what happened. Nigerian Tribune newspaper said the attacks took place in Wuro Fatuje, a popular off-campus hostel accommodating students of the Federal Polytechnic, Adamawa State University and the School of Health Technology, all located in Mubi. It was gathered that 26 of the killed students were from Federal Polytechnic, Mubi.

The BBC quoted the police as saying most victims were called out by name by the gunmen before being killed. A local resident said the attackers went from door to door, shooting or slitting the throats of their victims. Police in Adamawa State said the gunmen had inside knowledge, but stressed that the motive for the attacks was not yet clear. Other sources said the gang of gunmen dressed in military fatigues and numbering over 50, invaded different hostels and residential houses, shooting sporadically as hundreds of victims scampered for safety.

A local resident told the BBC’s Hausa Service that the assailants arrived a hall of residence away from the campus just before midnight, got the students out of their rooms and ordered them to identify themselves. Some were then shot dead and others stabbed with knives, and their bodies left in lines outside the buildings. It was not clear why some students were killed and others spared, though the dead included both Moslems and Christians.

The attack came days after dozens of people with suspected links to the Boko Haram militant group were arrested in Mubi during which weapons were seized and a bomb-making factory uncovered in a nearby locality. Officials have not ruled out a recent student union election dispute at Federal Polytechnic, Mubi as being the trigger for the violence.