More Chibok schoolgirls have been released three years after their abduction by Boko Haram extremists, though the exact number is not immediately known, Nigerian officials said.

Boko Haram extremists are actively planning to kidnap western foreign workers in north-east Nigeria, according to the US and UK governments.

A Nigerian Air Force fighter jet on a mission against Boko Haram extremists has mistakenly bombed a refugee camp, killing more than 100 refugees and wounding aid workers, a state official said.

Nearly half a million children will face starvation in north-eastern Nigeria next year and 80,000 will die unless they receive treatment, amid the humanitarian crisis created by Boko Haram's Islamic uprising, the United Nations' children's agency has warned.

The first kidnapped schoolgirl to escape from Islamic extremist group Boko Haram’s stronghold in the Sambisa Forest has been flown to Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, to meet the country’s president.

Suspected Islamic extremists detonated three explosive devices in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state, in Nigeria’s north east – killing eight people.

Extremists detonated three explosive devices in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state, in Nigeria’s north-east.

Nigerian troops have rescued 178 people from Boko Haram in attacks that destroyed several of the Islamic extremist group’s camps in the north east, according to the army.

Nigeria’s home-grown Boko Haram group, newly weakened by a multinational force that has dislodged it from a score of north-eastern towns, has reportedly pledged formal allegiance to the Islamic State group.

About 19 people were killed and 17 others injured in a suicide bombing in north-east Nigeria, a day before the president visited another town hit by violence.

Suspected Boko Haram fighters killed at least 34 and injured several others in attacks on villages near Chibok and Konduga in Nigeria’s northeastern Borno state earlier this week, according to residents and local officials.

Boko Haram fighters attacked a village in Chad, the first known lethal attack in that country by the Nigerian militant group, which killed several people including a local chief, according to residents and security forces.

The slaying of hundreds, if not thousands, of innocent Nigerians has not garnered the sort of outrage the Paris attacks did. Why is this so, asks Áine Carroll

More than 10,000 panic-stricken Cameroonians are fleeing border regions with Nigeria’s Borno state for safer locations after attacks by Nigeria’s Islamic militant group Boko Haram, government officials said.

More than 10,000 panic-stricken Cameroonians are fleeing border regions with Nigeria’s Borno state for safer locations after attacks by Nigeria’s Islamic militant group Boko Haram, government officials said.

As Islamic militants from Boko Haram step up attacks in Nigeria that have led to the slaughter of more civilians, there is increasing talk that international military action, possibly including a multinational force, may be needed to help crush the insurgency in Africa’s most populous country.

At least three people have been killed and dozens more injured in twin suicide bomb attacks in Nigeria.

People in the home town of more than 200 kidnapped Nigerian schoolgirls are cautiously optimistic about a ceasefire with the Islamic extremists who abducted their daughters six months ago.

Nigeria’s Islamic extremists of Boko Haram have seized more towns along Nigeria’s northeastern border with Cameroon and are adopting a new strategy of encouraging civilians to stay, witnesses said, as the militants pursue their new aim to carve out an "Islamic caliphate" under their black and white flag.

Boko Haram extremists have killed more than 100 people in Nigeria, according to a civil defence spokesman.

At least 50 alleged insurgents were killed during clashes with Nigerian soldiers as security forces repelled an attack on a military base in the north-eastern state of Borno.

Boko Haram militants dressed as soldiers slaughtered at least 200 civilians in three villages in north-eastern Nigeria and the military failed to intervene even though it was warned that an attack was imminent, witnesses said.

Fifty-four people were killed in two attacks in northern Nigeria suspected to be by Islamic extremists, officials said.

Residents in a village in Nigeria from where more than 300 schoolgirls were kidnapped have criticised the country's president for not turning up on a planned visit.

Villagers in an area of Nigeria where Boko Haram operates have killed and detained scores of extremist Islamic militants suspected of planning a fresh attack.

Villagers in an area of Nigeria where Boko Haram operates have killed and detained scores of the Islamic militants who were suspected of planning a fresh attack, residents and a security official said.

Islamic extremists blew up a bridge, killed an unknown number of people, and abducted the wife and children of a retired police officer in north-east Nigeria over the weekend as as an international effort got underway to rescue 276 schoolgirls kidnapped by the militants.

It is understood the search for 276 schoolgirls kidnapped in Nigeria is closing in on a forest near the eastern border.

Nigerian security officials failed to act on a warning about a militant group’s raid on a boarding school that led to the abduction of more than 300 girls, Amnesty International says.

Islamic militants who prompted global outrage over the kidnapping of more than 270 schoolgirls have opened fire on a busy marketplace, killing hundreds in a new spasm of violence in Nigeria’s north-east.

Scores of girls and young women kidnapped from a school in Nigeria are being forced to marry their Islamic extremist abductors, a civil society group claims.

Some 234 girls are missing from a Nigerian school attacked last week by Islamic extremists – significantly more than the 85 reported by education officials, parents told the state governor today.

Scores of female students kidnapped by Islamic militants from a north-eastern Nigerian school are free, the military has reported.

Suspected Islamic extremists have abducted about 100 female students from a school in north-east Nigeria, officials said.

Suspected Islamic extremists have targeted two Christian villages in mainly Muslim north-east Nigeria and killed at least 12 civilians, including guests at a wedding reception, witnesses said.

Five suspected members of a radical Islamist sect were killed in an explosion that struck a small town in the country’s restive north east, Nigeria’s military said.

A radical Muslim sect attacked a church worship service in Nigeria’s north-east during assaults that killed at least 15 people, authorities said today, as Christians vowed to defend themselves from the group’s widening sectarian fight against the country’s government.

Members of a radical Muslim sect attacked a church in north-east Nigeria during a worship service, part of a series of assaults that killed at least 13 people, authorities said.

Gunmen from a radical Muslim sect attacked a town hall in Nigeria, killing at least 20 people who had gathered for a meeting of a Christian ethnic group.

Nigeria’s president has declared a state of emergency in parts of the West African nation after a slew of recent attacks blamed on a radical Muslim sect.

Multiple blasts have rocked a city in Nigeria's restive north east where a radical Muslim sect is accused of a rash of targeted killings, authorities said.

Members of a radical Muslim sect shot and killed a political leader in northern Nigeria, the latest attack by a group that engineered a massive prison break last month, police said.

MORE than 700 people were killed during a five-day uprising by a radical Islamic sect in northern Nigeria and the search for bodies is continuing, Red Cross and defence officials said yesterday.

THE leader of a radical Islamic sect blamed for violent clashes between his followers and government forces has been shot dead in police custody.