Suspected Islamist gunmen killed 27 students and a teacher in a boarding school in the northeast Nigerian town of Potiskum yesterday, a police source said.

The attack is a further sign that Islamist insurgent group Boko Haram remains a threat to Africa’s top oil producer despite a crackdown on it.

The attackers set fire to buildings and shot pupils as they tried to flee, the source told Reuters by e-mail. A hospital was treating several of the students for burns, he added.

It was the deadliest of three attacks on schools since the military launched an offensive in May to try to crush Boko Haram, whose nickname translates as ‘Western education is sinful’ in the northern Hausa language.

Under the leadership of fiery militant Abubakar Shekau, Boko Haram rejects Western cultural influences like modern schooling and yearns for the days when much of West Africa was ruled by great Islamic empires thriving off trans-Saharan trade.