Three North Korean doctors have
been killed, one of them beheaded, in north eastern Nigeria.
A gang armed with machetes is
believed to have carried out the attack on the men at their flat in Potiskum, a
town in Yobe state.
The victims of the latest attack
had no security guards at their residence and travelled around the city via
three-wheel taxis without a police escort, officials said.
The Koreans, whose bodies were
found by neighbours, had been working in the city since 2005.
Police arrived at the scene to
find two of the victims had their throats slit, the third beheaded, and all
bearing what appeared to be machete wounds. Their wives had been spared.
No one has claimed responsibility
for the attack, though it is thought a radical Islamic sect known as Boko Haram
may be behind the killings.
The attacks have raised questions
over whether the sect, targeted by Nigeria's police and military, has picked a
new soft target in its guerrilla campaign of shootings and bombings across the
nation.
There are also fears that the
sect may have splintered into smaller, independently operating terror groups.
"It is still premature to
point any accusing fingers but we have commenced an investigation to unravel
the killings," said Yobe State police commissioner Sanusi Rufa'i.
In a statement on Friday,
Nigerian President Goodluck condemned the killings of the polio workers as
"dastardly terrorist attacks" and vowed to track down the
perpetrators.
He also pledged that efforts to
cut child mortality would not be stopped by "mindless acts of terrorism".
Four Chinese construction workers
were shot dead by gunmen in two separate attacks in October and November last
year in Borno state, which neighbours Yobe.
In December, militants in
Pakistan killed at least nine workers on a polio vaccine campaign. There, the
Taliban has accused health workers of acting as US spies and claimed the
vaccine makes children sterile or impotent.
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