Suicide bomb kills 48 at all-boys school in Nigeria, Boko Haram suspected

A suicide bomb attack has killed 48 students and injured 79 others as the school children gathered for morning assembly at their school in northeast Nigeria. Early reports point to Islamist group Boko Haram as the culprit. 

The explosion occurred at an all-boys school in Potiskum, NIgeria. It came just a day after the release of a new Boko Haram video in which the group's leader, Abubakar Shekau, again rejected Nigerian government claims of a ceasefire and peace talks.

Boko Haram, which is Hausa for "western education is sinful", has attacked schools, abducted hundreds of students and killed thousands in its fight for an Islamist state, and is seen as the main security threat to Africa's leading oil producer.

"We suspect Boko Haram is behind the attack," police spokesman Emmanuel Ojukwu said, according to CNN.

"A teacher who survived the blast with minor injury said the bomber dressed like a student and was also on the assembly ground with the students," she said, asking to remain anonymous, according to Reuters. 

A second teacher, asking to remain anonymous, said: "There are some (others) that are critically injured and I am sure the death toll will rise," according to the report. 

In February, Boko Haram gunmen killed at least 40 students when they opened fire and threw explosives in student hostels in a government boarding school in the town of Buni Yadi, in Yobe state. The group's five-year insurgency is aimed at establishing an Islamic state.

Boko Haram's most high-profile attack on a school came in April, when fighters kidnapped 276 girls from the town of Chibok in Borno state, also in northeast Nigeria.

More than six months later since the incident occurred, 219 of the girls are still being held captive and whether they are alive or not is still unknown.