- Feb 5, 2002
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The quick thinking of a headteacher helped save the lives of sleeping students after armed extremists stormed a secondary school in Nigeria’s Middle Belt.
Fr Emmanuel Ogwuche, principal at Fr Angus Frazer Memorial High School in Makurdi, promptly switched off all the lights in the building after hearing gunshots outside, preventing the terrorists from finding their way inside the school.
An officer of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps guarding the school in Benue State “jumped over the fence” and “the gunmen went after him, but he managed to escape” with non-fatal injuries, Fr Moses Iorapuu, Director of Social Communications at Makurdi Diocese told Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN).
Father Iorapuu said that unidentified extremists opened fire at the co-educational Catholic school while the pupils were asleep inside the building.
He added: “There were so many gunshots and they were shooting for a very long time.
“We were lucky and the Lord was kind to us that no student was hit.”
Fr Iorapuu explained that the school is temporarily closed and the students have been evacuated as “a pre-emptive measure to ensure the safety of the children and avoid what could have been an unimaginable disaster”.
He added: “The people are kind of getting used to these attacks.
Continued below.
Fr Emmanuel Ogwuche, principal at Fr Angus Frazer Memorial High School in Makurdi, promptly switched off all the lights in the building after hearing gunshots outside, preventing the terrorists from finding their way inside the school.
An officer of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps guarding the school in Benue State “jumped over the fence” and “the gunmen went after him, but he managed to escape” with non-fatal injuries, Fr Moses Iorapuu, Director of Social Communications at Makurdi Diocese told Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN).
Father Iorapuu said that unidentified extremists opened fire at the co-educational Catholic school while the pupils were asleep inside the building.
He added: “There were so many gunshots and they were shooting for a very long time.
“We were lucky and the Lord was kind to us that no student was hit.”
Fr Iorapuu explained that the school is temporarily closed and the students have been evacuated as “a pre-emptive measure to ensure the safety of the children and avoid what could have been an unimaginable disaster”.
He added: “The people are kind of getting used to these attacks.
Continued below.
Priest plunges school into darkness to save children from marauding gunmen - Catholic Herald
The quick thinking of a headteacher helped save the lives of sleeping students after armed extremists stormed a secondary school in Nigeria’s Middle Belt. Fr Emmanuel Ogwuche, principal at Fr Angus Frazer Memorial High School in Makurdi, promptly switched off all the lights in the building after...
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