POTISKUM, Nigeria (AP) -- Attackers in northeastern Nigeria killed three South Korean doctors, beheading one of the physicians, in the latest onslaught targeting health workers in a nation under assault by a radical Islamic sect, officials said Sunday.
The deaths Saturday night of the doctors in Potiskum, a town in Yobe state long under attack by the sect known as Boko Haram, comes after gunmen killed at least nine women administering polio vaccines in Kano, the major city of Nigeria's predominantly Muslim north.
The two attacks raise new questions over whether the extremist sect, targeted by Nigeria's police and military, has picked newer, softer targets in its guerrilla campaign of shootings and bombings across the nation.
The attackers apparently targeted the South Korean doctors inside their home, an official at General Hospital in Potiskum, a government-run health facility, told The Associated Press. The South Korean doctors had no security guards at their residence and typically trave.. http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AF_NIGERIA_VIOLENCE?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
3 Chinese doctors slain in Northern Nigeria
Armed men killed three Chinese doctors in a pre-dawn attack Sunday in Nigeria’s town of Potiskum, Yobe state, police said, in the latest such killings in recent months.
“Unknown attackers scaled over the fence of an apartment in Potiskum housing three Chinese doctors around 1:00 am and slit their throats. No arrest has been made,” Yobe State police commissioner Sanusi Rufa’i told AFP.
Residents said the Chinese were employees of the state ministry of health and had been living in the volatile city for one year.
Rufa’i did not say if the Islamist group Boko Haram which has been active in Potiskum, some 100 kilometres from state capital Damaturu was responsible for the attack.
“It is still premature to point any accusing fingers but we have commenced investigation to unravel the killings,” he said.
A local resident said the bodies of the Chinese were found in their room Sunday morning by neighbours who forced the door open.
“This morning, it was discovered that three Chinese doctors have been slaughtered. People became worried when the doctors did not open their door in the morning,” a resident who did not want to be named, told AFP.
The killings were the latest against Chinese nationals in recents months in the country’s restive northeast. http://www.osundefender.org/?p=93651
