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The school in Nigeria after the attack about a week ago
Photo: Abdullatif Yusuf / AP
According to the authorities, 344 students kidnapped in northwestern Nigeria have been released.
"We thank God they were released," Ibrahim Katsina, a security advisor to the governor of Katsina state, told AFP.
An assistant to the Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari had previously announced on Twitter that the students had been "saved".
It is still unclear whether all of the students were released.
From security circles it was said that some of the children were still in the hands of the kidnappers.
Last Friday, the students at a secondary school for boys north of the city of Kankara in the state of Katsina were kidnapped.
The Islamist group Boko Haram later claimed the act for itself.
The exact number of those missing was unclear.
Authorities spoke of 333 kidnapped students and Kankara locals of more than 500 kidnapped people.
The attack took place hundreds of kilometers from the actual action area of Boko Haram and is reminiscent of the kidnapping of hundreds of schoolgirls in Chibok in 2014. Boko Haram is usually located in the northeast of the country around Lake Chad.
Boko Haram has been fighting violently since 2009 for the establishment of an Islamic state of God in the predominantly Muslim northeastern Nigeria.
The jihadist group has committed numerous atrocities in the past few weeks.
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svv / AFP