Over 120 students missing after Nigeria school raid

About 125 students were still missing on Wednesday but 28 others had been re-united with their families after an attack by armed men on a boarding school in Nigeria's Kaduna state, the head of the Kaduna Baptist conference said.

Gunmen raided the Bethel Baptist High School overnight on Monday, the 10th mass school kidnapping since December in northwest Nigeria. Parents told Reuters that 180 students typically attend the school, and those pupils were in the process of sitting exams.

Parents of those missing told Reuters that the kidnappers promised the children would be safe if parents delivered rice, beans, palm oil, salt and stock cubes. They said abductors told them that a ransom demand would follow.

Nigerian authorities have attributed the kidnappings to what they call armed bandits seeking ransom payments.

Also Read- Gunmen kidnap 140 school students in Nigeria

"Search and rescue operations (are) ongoing and we strongly believe that these students will safely return to their parents soon," Reverend IAJangado said in a statement.

Humanitarian agencies warn that the rise in school kidnappings is disrupting the education of hundreds of thousands of Nigerian children.

The United Nations children's agency UNICEF estimates that more than about 1,120 schools are closed across north-western Nigeria. Even where schools are open, some parents are too afraid to send their children. Some 300,000-400,000 students in the region are out of school because of insecurity, UNICEF said.

"The situation we have found ourselves is indeed pathetic, particularly for the parents of the kidnapped students and the school community," said Jangado.