Teachers and pupils of the Roxanne Burnham Gardens Nursery School were shaken following an attack this morning on the school by a machete-wielding man demanding laptops.
According to one teacher, at 11:05 a man went to the school while the children were playing in the yard and asked for a child who did not attend the school. After speaking to the headmistress the man left but returned.
As a teacher was locking the grill door of the school following the end of recess, the man again asked for another child that did not attend the school. Before the teacher could respond, the man forced his way into the school and brandished a machete demanded “the two laptops”.
According to a teacher, the man ordered the children and teachers to lie on the floor. When one teacher escaped from the flat building, the man attacked another teacher by spraying a noxious substance in her face and assaulting her with the machete to the head.
He sprayed the substance once more in the building and escaped by jumping the back fence and running through an alleyway, a still shaken teacher stated. This is the first time that the school has been attacked in such a manner, the Headmistress noted.
Some time back during a school session, the guard hut in the compound was ransacked by some men, the Headmistress said. Following that, she began locking the school gate but decided to leave it open since it encumbered her work. The Headmistress said that she may have to resume this since the school cannot afford a guard.
