Gunmen in northern Nigeria set fire to a staff residential building at a girls' secondary school on Sunday but the 195 students sleeping in their nearby dormitories were unharmed, police and a teacher said.

The attack in Bauchi state came less than a week after Boko Haram Islamists kidnapped 129 teenage schoolgirls from the Chibok area of Borno state in the northeast. Forty-four of those girls have since escaped.

Boko Haram claimed responsibility for the deadliest attack ever in Nigeria’s capital in a video obtained Saturday, as the search continued for 85 schoolgirls still missing after a mass abduction by the Islamists.

The bombing at a bus station packed with morning commuters early on Monday killed at least 75 people on the outskirts of Abuja, hours before gunmen kidnapped 129 girls from a school in northeastern Borno state, Boko Haram's base.

Another 14 Nigerian schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram Islamists in the northeast have escaped, leaving 85 missing on Saturday after an attack that has sparked global outrage, an official said.

The unprecedented mass abduction of 129 teenage girls from the Chibok area of Borno state has been described as among the most shocking ever by Boko Haram, an extremist group blamed for killing thousands since 2009.

The Nigerian military on Friday admitted that most of the 129 girls abducted by Boko Haram Islamists from their school in the country's restive northeast remained missing.

The military had claimed on Wednesday that all but eight of the 129 girls snatched from their school in the state of Borno managed to escape, contrary to the position of the state government and the school principal.

At least seven people were killed in ethnic and religious violence in eastern Nigeria's Taraba state, police said Thursday, with local residents putting the toll at 20.

Violence erupted in the town of Wukari on Tuesday through Wednesday when Christian Jukun gunmen attacked their Muslim Hausa-Fulani neighbors in a reprisal attack following fighting in a nearby village, state police spokesman Joseph Kwaji told Agence France Presse.

A Nigerian school principal on Thursday denied military reports that most of the girls kidnapped by Islamist gunmen were now safe, as parents continued a desperate search for 115 children still held captive.

A defense ministry spokesman, Chris Olukolade, claimed on Wednesday that all but eight of the 129 girls kidnapped from the Government Girls Secondary School in Chibok area of Borno state earlier in the week were now safe, citing the school's principal.

The Nigerian schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram were taken to a stronghold of the Islamist group, parents said on Wednesday, as the military confirmed that 129 students had been abducted.

Defense spokesman Chris Olukolade, who had earlier given the figure of those kidnapped in northeastern Borno state late Monday, later said all but eight had been released, but that was disputed by sources in the region and could not be independently confirmed.

The Nigerian schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram were taken to a stronghold of the Islamist group, parents said on Wednesday, as the security forces pressed on with a search to find the hostages.

The defense ministry has confirmed that 129 girls were taken by gunmen in the northeastern state of Borno late Monday, just hours after a bomb ripped through a packed bus station on the outskirts of Abuja, killing 75 people, the deadliest attack ever in the capital.

Heavily armed Boko Haram Islamists abducted more than 100 girls from a secondary school in northeast Nigeria, sparking a search by soldiers to track down the attackers, a security source and witnesses said Tuesday.

Some of the schoolgirls in the Chibok area of southern Borno state narrowly escaped their kidnappers by jumping off a truck in the middle of the night as the gunmen sought to cart them away, according to multiple witnesses.

Nigeria police boosted security across Abuja on Tuesday after a bomb blast ripped through a packed bus station killing at least 72 people, the deadliest attack ever to hit the capital.

The slaughter on the outskirts of Abuja has raised fears that a deadly insurgency waged by Boko Haram Islamists may be spreading from the remote northeast areas the group has primarily targeted in recent months.