The Yobe State government has ordered the closure of all secondary schools across the state, following the massacre of 29 students and a teacher by suspected Islamist extremists on Saturday.

Visiting the school on Sunday, governor Ibrahim Gaidam described the attack as “cold-blooded murder…callous and devoid of any shred of humanity”.

He ordered that all secondary schools be closed until the start of a new academic term in September, to allow state and federal government officials as well as community leaders to work on ways to guarantee the safety of schools.

According to him, all boarding schools in the state will be fenced, even as the Joint Task Force will provide the needed security in all the schools in the state.

Gaidam also called on the Chief of Defense Staff to consider the restoration of GSM services in the state, to enable those willing to give relevant information have access to security agents.

“Lack of (Global System for Mobile Communications) service has prevented patriotic citizens who have hitherto been collaborating with security agents from reporting suspicious movements in theirneighbourhoods,” he said.

The governor said that residents saw the insurgents who carried out the last two attacks in Damaturu, the state capital but could not reach security forces to alert them.

Earlier, the state education commissioner, Mohammed Lamin, briefed the governor that the casualty figure of those slain in the attack had risen to 33, as two more students and another person who were receiving treatment at the Potsikum General Hospital, later died.

The Government Secondary School, Mamudo, was torched by men believed to be members of the Boko Haram sect, at about 3:am last Saturday.

Survivors said the attackers stormed the school’s premises with gallons of petrol while students were still asleep and set their dormitories afire, burning alive many students. They also shot at some who tried to escape.

Several of these kinds of unprovoked attack on students have occurred in Borno and Yobe states since 2010.

The Boko Haram sect blamed for the attacks have an Islamic name which when translated means: “Western education is forbidden”.