Suspected Boko Haram militants attacked the college in Yobe State early on Sunday morning.

Gunmen, suspected to be Boko Haram sect members, on Sunday, September 29, 2013, went on rampage in Yobe State in north-eastern Nigeria, killing 78 students of the College of Agriculture, Gujba, Vanguard newspaper reported. Gujba is about 30 kilometres from Damaturu, the state capital.

All the students were aged between 18 and 22 years. The BBC put the number of dead at 50, while Thisday newspaper said 65 people were killed in various attacks both within and outside the college campus. The Yobe State Government confirmed the death of 40 people.  An eye witness quoted by Reuters news agency counted 40 bodies at the Damaturu Specialist Hospital, mostly those of young men believed to be students. The Provost of the College of Agriculture, Gujba, Molima Idi Mato, told the AP news agency that the number of dead could be as high as 50, adding that security forces were still recovering more bodies, with about 1,000 students having fled the campus.

Meanwhile, a military source told AP that soldiers collected 42 bodies. The gunmen also set fire to classrooms, a military spokesman in Yobe State, Lazarus Eli, told AFP news agency. The militants who struck at 1 a.m. as the students slept in their hostels, later moved to other homes in the community where they killed residents at will. They also blocked the Damaturu-Maiduguri road, killing at least 20 travellers. Residents said soldiers only arrived at the college two hours after the gunmen had left. The assailants were said to be wearing military camouflage with black bandanas round their heads.

The militants were also said to have set some structures in the college on fire and watched as the hapless students battled to escape from the inferno. The sect members took some students out of their dormitories before killing them, Reuters news agency reported. The attack came two months after a similar one on students of a boarding secondary school in Mamudo, near Potiskum, also in Yobe State that claimed the lives of no fewer than 29 school children.