Suspected Boko Haram extremists killed 43 people on Tuesday when they attacked secondary school students as they slept in the latest school massacre to hit Nigeria’s troubled northeast.

Suspected Boko Haram extremists killed 43 people on Tuesday when they attacked secondary school students as they slept in the latest school massacre to hit Nigeria's troubled northeast.

The raid at 2:00 am (0100 GMT) targeted the Federal Government College in the town of Buni Yadi in Yobe state and bore the hallmarks of a similar attack last September in which 40 died.

The attackers reportedly hurled explosives into student residential buildings, sprayed gunfire into rooms and hacked a number students to death.

A senior medical source at the Sani Abacha Specialist Hospital in Yobe's capital Damaturu said the gunmen only targeted male students and that female students were "spared".

"So far, 43 bodies have been brought (from the college) and are lying at the morgue," said the source, who requested anonymity as he was not authorized to discuss death tolls.