Suspected members of the Boko Haram sect stormed a boarding school in Yobe overnight and killed 29 pupils, many of whom died in flames as the school was burned to the ground, police and the military said on Tuesday.

"Some of the students bodies were burned to ashes," Police Commissioner Sanusi Rufai said of the attack on the Federal Government college of Buni Yadi, a secondary school in Yobe state, near the state's capital city of Damaturu.

The Commisioner said the attackers burnt down 24 staff quarters including the adminisstrative block of the college and all those killed were boys, no girl were touched, he said.

A similar attack in June in the village of Mamudo left 22 students dead.

More than 200 people were killed in two attacks last week, one in which militants razed a whole village and shot panicked residents as they tried to flee.

A military spokesman for Yobe state, Captain Lazarus Eli, confirmed the attack and said "Our men are down there in pursuit of the killers, we dont have details yet."

This is coming in the light of effort from the Nigeria military force, working with the Cameroon authorities to try to prevent the militants from mounting attacks in Nigeria and then fleeing over the border.

The military shut the northern part of the border with Cameroon on the weekend. The insurgents mostly occupy the remote, hilly Gwoza area bordering Cameroon, from where they attack civilians they accuse of being pro-government.