Suspected Islamic extremists attacked an agricultural college in the dead of night, gunning down dozens of students as they slept in dormitories and torching classrooms in an ongoing Islamic uprising in northeast Nigeria, the school's provost said.

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

Islamist sect Boko Haram has intensified attacks on civilian targets in recent weeks in reaction to a military offensive against its insurgency. Boko Haram and spinoff Islamist groups such as the al-Qaida-linked Ansaru have become the biggest security threat in Africa's second-largest economy and top oil exporter.

"They attacked our students while they were sleeping in their hostels. They opened fire on them," Mato said.

He said he could not give an exact death toll as security forces were still recovering bodies.

Abdullahi Garba, a student at the college, recounted that the gunmen shot sporadically.

"Surviving students are at the moment fleeing the school premises. We really want to reunite with our families right now," he said.

Most of the students fear more attacks by the gunmen, he added.

The Nigerian military has collected 42 bodies and taken 18 injured students to Damaturu Specialist Hospital, said a military intelligence official, who insisted on anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the press.

The school's other 1,000 enrolled students have fled the college, about 40 km north of the scene of similar school attacks around Damaturu town, Mato said.

He said there were no security forces stationed at the college despite government assurances that they would be deployed. The state commissioner for education, Mohammed Lamin, called a news conference two weeks ago urging all schools to reopen and promising protection from soldiers and police.

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

Northeastern Nigeria is under a state of emergency as the military battles an Islamist uprising prosecuted 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 published a video last week to disprove military claims that he might have been killed in an ongoing crackdown.

Government and security officials claim they are winning their war on terror in the northeast, but Sunday's attack and others belie those assurances.

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

AP-Reuters-Xinhua

(China Daily 09/30/2013 page12)