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The parents gathered at a secondary school in Nigeria’s northwestern Katsina state on Sunday, pleading with authorities to save hundreds of children abducted by gunmen.
More than 300 students from the Kankara boys’ government science school who were taken on Friday night remained missing on Sunday.
“We will not rest until we see the end of this,” state spokesman Abdul Labaran told Reuters.
Labaran said military and intelligence chiefs were in Kankara to lead the rescue. Although 321 students were missing, he said some may have gone to other states.
All state schools in Katsina were ordered closed because officials did not know the motives of the attackers, the education commissioner said.
Abubakar Lawal came from Zaria, a city 120 kilometers south of Kanara. Two of her three children at school were among those missing.
“Since yesterday I have been here, praying that the Almighty Allah would rescue our people,” he said outside the dusty school grounds.
One of her missing sons, Buhari, 17, was named after President Muhammadu Buhari, a native of Katsina state.
Yahaya, 17, told Reuters he escaped on Saturday. He gave only one name for fear of retaliation. He said he escaped while the kidnappers moved the students to different places in the forest.
“We met someone with a motorcycle who took us to a nearby town,” he said. “From there someone bought us Kankara.”
He said the group leaders told the men not to harm them.
Attacks by armed gangs, widely known as bandits, are common throughout northwestern Nigeria. The groups attack civilians, rob them or kidnap them for ransom. Islamist militants are more common in the Northeast.
There is growing outrage over the precarious security situation in Nigeria, the most populous nation in Africa. At the end of last month, Islamist militants killed dozens of farmers in northeast Borno, beheading some of them.
