Churches set alight in attack by suspected Islamist extremists on village close to town from where schoolgirls were kidnapped

Suspected Islamists sprayed gunfire at worshippers and torched four churches on Sunday in a village close to the town from where more than 200 schoolgirls were kidnapped, according to witnesses.

At least 30 bodies were recovered but more were still being found in the bushes, where people from Kwada village had been hiding, said a member of a vigilante group that has had some successes in repelling attacks.

"They killed dozens of people and burned houses after attacking worshippers," survivor Mallam Yahi said by telephone from Chibok town.

The church buildings destroyed included the Protestant Church of Christ, the Pentecostal Deeper Life Bible Church and Ekklesiyar Yan'uwa, which is Hausa for Church of the Brethren in Nigeria, Yahi said. The last was started by American missionaries from Illinois in the 1920s.

Yahi said the attackers went on to neighbouring Kautikari, where they shot at villagers and burned homes. The vigilante said they had not yet reached Kautikari so did not know the death toll there.

A police spokesman, Gideon Jubrin, said he could not confirm the attack because bad communications had kept officials from reaching the nearest security post at Chibok, though Associated Press reporters were able to make phone calls to the town.

Chibok is the town in the north-east state of Borno from where more than 200 girls were abducted in April. Officials say 219 girls remain captive. Kwada is six miles and Kautikari four miles from Chibok.

Residents said soldiers were slow to respond to news of the attack, and the vigilantes said when soldiers finally reached Kwada, they refused to confront the extremists directly, only shooting at them from a distance. They spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals from the military.

Boko Haram extremists attacked a military camp in the neighbouring local government area of Damboa last week and killed at least 51 soldiers. Survivors said they came in armoured personnel carriers mounted with anti-aircraft guns and were armed with rocket launchers and submachine guns much heavier than the soldiers' AK47 assault rifles. Many soldiers abducted by the insurgents remain missing, they said.

Boko Haram extremists are demanding the release of detained fighters in return for the kidnapped girls. Nigeria's president, Goodluck Jonathan, has been criticised for the slow reaction to the abductions and failure to swiftly rescue the girls. US drones are flying to help locate them and other nations have sent experts to help, but negotiations appear to have stalled.

Nigeria's military has said it knows the location of the girls but fears any military campaign could end in their deaths.

Jonathan on Sunday condemned other recent attacks: Friday's bombing of a hotel that local reports identified as a brothel in the north-east state of Bauchi, and sectarian killings of farmers, who are mainly Christian, allegedly by Fulani Muslim herders in northern Kaduna state.

"The president commiserates with all the families who lost loved ones in the heinous attacks and extends his heartfelt sympathies to all those who suffered injuries or lost their properties during the wanton assaults on Bauchi and Kaduna States," said a statement.

He promised the attackers would be punished.