Three North Korean doctors killed, one beheaded, in Nigeria (UPDATES)
Health workers tries to board a vehicle taking them to designated centres to immunise children in Lagos on December 17, 2012. Lagos State government has expressed the fears that the continuous influx of people into the state, especially from violence prone states, especially Boko Haram ravaged northern states, where the polio cases are still recorded, may threaten the polio-free record of the state and has embarked on immunisation of children to avoid the spread of the disease in the state.
Three North Korean doctors were murdered on the night of Febuary 9th in Potiskum, Nigeria, in a brutal attack on health care workers that some suspect may be linked to the extremist Boko Haram group.
The three men were killed inside of their home, which lacked security guards, says the Associated Press.
One of the men had been beheaded by the attackers, while their wives, who survived the attack, had hid outside.
Ten suspects are currently under arrest, but it is unclear yet who they are or if they are connected to extremist group Boko Haram.
"At this point we cannot say if they are Boko Haram, hired killers or common criminals, but we have cordoned off the area and are in the process of interrogating them," Commissioner Sanusi Rufa'i told CNN.
The Yonhap News Agency out of South Korea reported the South Korean foreign ministry said there is "not a high chance" that the dead doctors were South Korean, as was first reported. It was initially unclear what nationality the doctors were, as AFP noted. Reuters had said they were "either" South Korean or Chinese.
Nine women were shot dead in two separate attacks on health care workers giving out polio vaccines in Nigeria on Friday, leading to fears that Islamist extremists in the African nation have shifted their aggresion toward healthcare workers.
President Goodluck Jonathan condemned the killings and vowed that the campaign to cure polio would continue through to completion, BBC News reported.