* The more than 300 boys had been abducted from a school last week

* Katsina governor says “most” of boys now free

* Islamist militants had claimed responsibility in audiotape (Updates with governor’s interview stating the boys were freed)

By Libby George and Alexis Akwagyiram

Governor Aminu Bello Masari said in a televised interview with state channel NTA that a total of 344 boys held in a forest in neighboring Zamfara state had been freed.

“We have recovered most of the boys. It’s not all of them,” he said.

The boys, whose abduction was claimed by Islamist militant group Boko Haram in an unverified audio recording, were on their way back to Katsina state and would be medically examined and reunited with their families on Friday, Masari said.

The Dec. 11 abduction gripped a nation already incensed by widespread insecurity, and evoked memories of Boko Haram’s 2014 kidnapping of more than 270 schoolgirls in the northeastern town of Chibok.