Parents of abducted children plead with the Nigerian government for news of rescue

PAPIRI, Nigeria (AP) – Hundreds of parents whose children were abducted last week at a Catholic school in north-central Niger gathered Friday at the school site to plead with the government for their children’s rescue.

More than 250 children remain captive after gunmen stormed the school early morning on Nov. 21 and carted away more than 300 students and staff. According to school authorities, 50 children managed to escape.

Parents say they are waiting in pain for news of the release.

“The children they took, some of them are still of tender age,” Abuchi Nwolisa, a parent at the school, told The Associated Press. “They took some of them from their sleeping bed.”

Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu declared a state of emergency earlier this week, bolstering the country’s police force to combat escalating attacks.

Nigeria has been rocked by two separate mass abductions of schoolchildren in the past two weeks. Gunmen also attacked a school in Kebbi, abducting 30 students before the government secured their release.

Mass abductions of schoolchildren have become common in the West African nation, which is facing critical threats from several armed groups, including groups that specialize in kidnappings for ransom.

Since 2014, there have been at least a dozen mass abductions of school students, and at least 1,799 students have been kidnapped since then, according to a tally by AP. Some of them are never rescued.

“We have parents who have two, three, five children with the abductors, and that is why we are here to tell the world that this is real,” Stephen Okafor, spokesperson for the Minna Catholic Mission, told the AP.

Tensions in Nigeria flared recently following threats from U.S. President Donald Trump to intervene militarily, citing widespread persecution of Christians in the country. The Nigerian government rejected the claims, saying the security situation is a complex threat that affects the entire country and not just a single religion.