Abuja, (SANA) The Nigerian police announced on Saturday the death of 17 of its officers in an armed attack on a training center in the northeast of the country.
“The police announce with deep sadness the tragic loss of seventeen officers who gave their lives for their country during a terrorist attack on the College of Nigerian Special Forces on May 8,” AFP reported.
The statement specified that the officers, who were undergoing specialized operational training at the institution, “were killed in a coordinated attack launched by terrorists against the center from different locations.”
Furthermore, Nigerian army units repelled a coordinated attack by Daech (ISIS) on its battalion headquarters and a neighboring checkpoint in the Buni Gari region, in the state of Yobe in the northeast of the country.
The Nigerian army indicated that the clashes “resulted in the neutralization of at least 50 terrorists,” while two soldiers were killed in the counterattack.
According to intelligence sources, the dead and injured from the attack were transferred to Maiduguri, the capital of the neighboring state of Borno.
Additionally, Nigerian senator Ali Ndum announced that at least 42 students were missing after an attack by armed men on a school and its surroundings in Borno state.
Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa, has been waging a war against armed groups, mainly Boko Haram and its ISIS branch, for seventeen years. Vast rural areas still escape full government control.
R.B.
