Suspected Islamic extremists have gunned down dozens of students as they slept in their dormitories during a night-time attack on an agricultural college in north-east Nigeria, the school's provost said.

As many as 50 students may have been killed in the assault that began at about 1am local time on Sunday, said Molima Idi Mato, provost of the Yobe State College of Agriculture in Gujba.

"They attacked our students while they were sleeping, they opened fire at them," he said, but could not give an exact death toll as security forces still were recovering bodies from the college.

The Nigerian military had collected 42 bodies and transported 18 injured students to Damaturu specialist hospital, according to a military intelligence official.

The school's other 1,000 students fled the college, about 25 miles (40km) north of Damaturu town, where there have been similar attacks on schools as part of a continuing Islamist uprising, said Mato.

He said there were no security forces stationed at the college despite government assurances that they would be deployed. The state education chief, Mohammed Lamin, held a news conference two weeks ago in which he urged all schools to reopen and promised protection from soldiers and police.

Most schools in the area closed after militants on 6 July killed 29 pupils and a teacher, burning some alive in their hostels, at Mamudo, outside Damaturu.



North-east Nigeria is under a military state of emergency to battle the Islamist uprising by Boko Haram militants who have killed more than 1,700 people since 2010 in their quest for an Islamic state. Boko Haram means "western education is forbidden" in the local Hausa language.

Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau last week published a video to prove he was alive and was not killed in during the crackdown by the military.

Government and security officials claim they are winning their war on terror in the north-east despite the attacks.

The Islamic extremists have killed at least 30 other civilians in the past week.

Twenty-seven people died in separate attacks on Wednesday and Thursday night in two villages of Borno state near the north-east border with Cameroon, according to the local council chairman, Modu-Gana Bukar Sheriiff.

The military spokesman did not respond to requests for information on those attacks, but a security official confirmed the death toll.

Also on Thursday, police said suspected Islamic militants killed a pastor, his son and a village head and torched their Christian church in Dorawa, about 60 miles from Damaturu. They said the gunmen used explosives to set fire to the church and five homes.

Farmers and government officials are fleeing threats of imminent attacks from Boko Haram in the area of the Gwoza Hills, a mountainous area with caves that shelter the militants despite repeated aerial bombardments by the military.

A local government official said there had been a series of attacks in recent weeks and threats of more. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared for his life, said Gwoza town was deserted when he visited it briefly under heavy security escort on Thursday.

He said militants had chased medical officers from the town's government hospital, which had been treating some victims of attacks. He added that militants had burned down three public schools in the area.

The official said the Gwoza local government has set up offices in Maiduguri, the state capital to the north.

More than 30,000 people have fled the terrorist attacks to neighbouring Cameroon and Chad and the uprising combined with the military emergency has forced farmers from their fields and vendors from their markets.