ABUJA, Feb. 21 (Xinhua) -- Forty-six students remained missing following an attack by terror group Boko Haram on an all-girls college in Nigeria's northeastern state of Yobe earlier this week, the Nigerian government said Wednesday.
Some 94 students were earlier noticed to have gone missing after the authorities conducted a headcount at the Government Girls Technical College in Dapchi area of Yobe, following the Boko Haram raid late Monday.
The state government said 28 of the girls returned late Tuesday and 20 more returned early Wednesday, having fled the school premises due to Boko Haram's invasion.
Mohammed Lamin, Yobe's commissioner for education, said the government remained hopeful that the remaining girls would return soon.
State police chief Abdulmaliki Sunmonu dismissed fears that the girls had been kidnapped by Boko Haram, saying the police could not establish that there was a case of abduction during the Monday attack.
"I asked the school's principal if there were abductions or deaths in the school and she said no," Sunmonu said.
A local teacher said the Boko Haram fighters went into the students' hostel, and many of the girls scaled the fence and escaped into the bushes.
Some of the girls who had so far returned told the school authorities that they were rescued by villagers in the nearby bushes.
The attack has sparked off outrage among local people as speculations grow that Boko Haram might have taken away the other missing girls.
About four years ago, 276 girls were seized by Boko Haram fighters who stormed their dormitories at the Girls Secondary School in Chibok town of Yobe's neighboring Borno State.
A total of 107 of the Chibok girls have been rescued or returned amid ongoing government's negotiation with Boko Haram.
Boko Haram has been trying since 2009 to establish an Islamic state in northeastern Nigeria, killing some 20,000 people and forcing displacement of millions of others.