Nigerian boys 'freed after Boko Haram abduction'

Hundreds of schoolboys kidnapped last week from a boarding school in north-western Nigeria have been released, local authorities have told the BBC.

A spokesman for the governor of Katsina state said 344 had been freed and were all in a good condition.

However, it is unclear whether all the boys are now accounted for.

The attack was claimed by the Islamist militant group Boko Haram, which hours earlier released a video apparently showing some of the boys.

In his statement, the Nigerian spokesman, Abdul Labaran, said the boys were being taken to the regional capital Katsina City, and would soon be reunited with their families.

He said the clip released by Boko Haram was authentic, but a message seemingly from the group's leader Abubakar Shekau was, instead, by an impersonator.

The state Governor Aminu Bello Masari was quoted by Reuters news agency as saying, "we have recovered most of the boys. It's not all of them," while a security source told the AFP news agency some remained with their captors.

Mr Labaran said none of the kidnapped boys had been killed, contradicting a boy shown in the video who said some had been killed by Nigerian fighter jets.

Few other details have been made public, but news of the release has been confirmed to BBC Hausa by another state government official.

Boko Haram has been notorious over the last decade for school kidnappings, including in Chibok in 2014, when nearly 300 schoolgirls were seized. Its name loosely translated as "Western education is forbidden".

However, these abductions have until now taken place in the north-east, where Boko Haram is based.