AT LEAST 48 schoolboys were slaughtered yesterday when a suicide bomber disguised in a school uniform detonated explosives at a high school assembly in the Nigerian city of Potiskum.

Soldiers rushed to the scene in the capital of Yobe state but they were chased away by a crowd throwing stones and expressing their anger at the military’s failure to halt a five-year Islamist insurgency that has killed thousands and driven hundreds of thousands from their homes.

A suicide bomb attack in the same city killed 30 people a week ago when suspected Boko Haram terrorists attacked a Muslim religious procession.

About 2,000 students had gathered for yesterday morning’s weekly assembly at the Government Technical Science College when the explosion blasted through the school hall, according to survivors.

Students reported a deafening noise, being blown to the floor and being covered in blood.

The hospital admitted 79 students, some with serious injuries that could require amputations. Some patients were squashed two to a bed because of overcrowding.

Survivors said that the bomber appeared to have hidden the explosives in a type of rucksack popular with students.

Nigeria’s military reported months ago finding a bomb factory where explosives were being sewn into rucksacks in the northern city of Kano.

Garba Alhaji, father of one of the wounded students, said the school did not have proper security.

“I strongly blame the Yobe state government for not fencing the college,” he said, recalling that a bomb was discovered in the school and removed by an anti-bomb squad just three months ago.