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The remote boarding school was attacked during the night, Will Ross reports
Residents of a town in north-east Nigeria are furious at the Nigerian security forces for withdrawing checkpoints ahead of a bloody attack by Islamist militants on a local school.
At least 29 teenage boys died in the raid, blamed on Boko Haram, on a rural boarding school in Yobe state.
Residents say soldiers guarding a nearby checkpoint were mysteriously withdrawn just before the attack.
Another checkpoint on the outskirts of town was also withdrawn a week ago.
The authorities have confirmed 29 deaths, but the AFP news agency has reported 42 dead and other sources have claimed even higher death tolls following the raid on Monday night.
Yobe Governor Ibrahim Gaidam has also criticised the security forces for their extremely slow response.
"It is unfortunate that up to five hours when this massacre took place, there were no security agents around to stop or contain the situation," he said in a statement.
The attackers reportedly hurled explosives into student residential buildings, sprayed gunfire into rooms and hacked a number of students at the secondary school to death.
"Some of the students' bodies were burned to ashes," Police Commissioner Sanusi Rufai said of the raid on the Federal Government College of Buni Yadi.
Most of the school was burned to the ground and at least 11 students were seriously injured.
All the victims were boys - female students were told to go home, get married and abandon education, said teachers at the school.
Boko Haram, whose name means "Western education is sin", has attacked dozens of schools in north-east Nigeria, since it began it began its bloody fight for an Islamic state in the north of the country in 2009.
Last September, 40 students were killed at an agricultural college during another night-time raid, and 300 people have been killed this month alone in attacks blamed on the group.
Military under fireBoko Haram, which has not claimed responsibility for the attack, says it aims to replace Nigeria's political leadership and establish a new state under strict Islamic law.
Nigeria's military said on Tuesday it was pursuing the attackers.
"We assure all law-abiding citizens that we will continue to do what is necessary to protect lives and property," a statement said.
President Goodluck Jonathan condemned the killings, calling them "heinous, brutal and mindless," and labelling the perpetrators "deranged terrorists and fanatics who have clearly lost all human morality and (who have) descended to bestiality".
Our correspondent says Nigeria's armed forces are facing increasing criticism for failing to protect civilians or to respond to raids by the militants.
Commenting on the attack, the Yobe governor added: "I have also been informed that the military here in Yobe state lack adequate number of troops on the ground."
Wave of violenceThe BBC's Isa Sanusi, from the Hausa service, says Boko Haram tends to attack schools that teach Nigeria's national curriculum, which the militants consider to be Western.
Earlier this month, militants claimed responsibility for killing a prominent northern Nigerian Islamic scholar, Sheikh Mohammed Awwal Albani, because he said the group's actions were un-Islamic.
Thousands of people have been killed since Boko Haram began its insurgency in 2009.
But the latest counter-offensive, ordered by President Jonathan in May, has also been blamed for triggering reprisals by militants against civilians.
Addressing a news conference on Monday, the president defended the army's record, saying it had achieved some successes against Boko Haram and that the militants had been contained to a small area of north-east Nigeria close to the border with Cameroon.
He said the two countries were working together to stop the militants from staging attacks in Nigeria and then escaping over the border.
Nigeria also appealed to France for help, two days before a planned visit from French President Francois Hollande.
Correspondents say Yobe has been relatively peaceful this year, unlike neighbouring Borno state, where at least 250 people have been killed in a series of large-scale attacks by the militants.
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