There's been no immediate claim of responsibility for what is the second such kidnapping in a little over a week in a region increasingly targeted by militants and criminal gangs.

The assailant struck at around one AM on Friday, according to the information commissioner in Zamfara state, firing sporadically as they entered the Government Girls Science Secondary School in the town of Django Baby.

The police and the army have launched search and rescue operations for the 317 missing students.

Zan, Forest Police Commissioner Abu to euro on the trail of the kidnappers.

That's why you find us in the fringes of the forest here as part of our locational effort, and it's part of our coordination coordination efforts in order to retrieve it, um to treat them kidnap us of the trip to students.

School kidnappings were first carried out in Nigeria by jihadist group Boko Haram and Islamic State, West Africa province, but the tactic has since been adopted by others in the Northwest, whose agendas are unclear.

Abductions are endemic around the increasingly lawless north on Friday was the third such incident since December, when 344 boys were taken from a school in San Far as neighbouring Katzen estate.

Last week, unidentified gunmen kidnapped 42 people, including 27 students, in an overnight attack on a boarding school.

Officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, say the rising abductions is fueled in part by sizable government payoffs in exchange for child hostages, though the government denies making such ransom payouts.

Earlier this month, President Muhammadu Buhari replaced his longstanding military chiefs amid the worsening violence.