Nearly 60 Nigerian secondary school pupils have been burned alive or hacked to death by Islamist militants in Nigeria.

Boko Haram fighters set fire to the children’s sleeping quarters and then shot and slit the throat of those who tried to escape through windows in Tuesday’s pre-dawn attack.

They “slaughtered them like sheep” with machetes and gunned down those who ran away, said teacher Adamu Garba.

Soldiers guarding a checkpoint near the government school were mysteriously withdrawn hours before it was targeted by the militants, said Yobe state governor spokesman Abdullahi Bego.

Female students were spared in the attack, said Mr Bego, though girls and women have been abducted in the past by militants of the Boko Haram movement.

This time, the insurgents went to the female dormitories and told the young women to go home, get married and abandon Western education.

Boko Haram, whose struggle for an Islamic state has killed thousands, has increasingly preyed on civilians, both Muslim and Christian.

Around 300 people have died in attacks this month alone.

Local officials buried the bodies of 29 victims and another 29 were taken to Damaturu Specialist Hospital, according to hospital records.

Most of the victims appeared to be between 15 and 20 years old.

Eleven wounded survivors of the attack were being treated at the hospital.

Governor Ibrahim Gaidam decried the federal government’s failure to protect the population.

“Our children in schools are dying from lack of adequate protection by the federal government,” he said.