The army says Nigerian troops have driven Boko Haram extremists out of an abandoned northeastern primary school in a shootout that killed four militants, the Associated Press reports.

An army statement says the insurgents were using the school as a transit camp until Sunday, November 1's attack.

Boko Haram — which means "Western education is forbidden" — has committed many atrocities at schools that have closed, been burned down or been abandoned in much of northeastern Borno state. The UN Children's Fund says 10.5 million children are out of school in Nigeria — the highest number in the world — and that only half of children among 2.3 million refugees from the uprising are going to school in camps.