Parents of dozens of children kidnapped last week from a Catholic school in Nigeria are desperate for their release, with one father crying out that his son is so young he has not yet learned to speak.

Armed gangs seized more than 300 children from a Catholic school in Nigeria’s central-western Niger state, in a resurgence of the mass kidnappings that have long harrowed Africa’s most populous country.

The same week, 25 schoolgirls were taken from another school, and 38 worshippers were seized from a church in the east of the country.

At least 50 taken from the Catholic school, St Mary’s, managed to escape, but more than 265 children and teachers are still being held.

“My son is a small boy. He doesn’t even know how to talk,” Michael Ibrahim said as parents of those still in captivity anxiously awaited their children’s safe release.

His son, who is four, suffers from asthma, he said.

“We don’t know the condition in which the boy is,” said Ibrahim, adding that the abduction had so sickened his wife that she had to be taken to the hospital.

Some of the children abducted are nursery-school age.

“I need my child back. I need my child back. If I had the power to bring my child back, I would do it,” another father, Sunday Isaiku, told AFP.

Nigeria has a history of mass kidnappings, mostly carried out by criminal gangs looking for ransom payments and targeting vulnerable populations in poorly policed rural areas.

Many of the captives get freed or rescued within weeks or months, while some escape on their own.

READ ALSO: Pope Demands Immediate Release Of 315 Abducted In Niger School, Others

 42 incidents targeting students 

Nigeria’s first high-profile mas kidnapping was that of the Chibok schoolgirls in 2014, when Boko Haram forced 276 girls from their dormitories in the country’s northeast.

More than a decade later, about 90 of those girls are still missing.

Nigeria suffers from a persistent security crisis fuelled by jihadist attacks and violence by “bandit” gangs that raid villages, kill people, and kidnap for ransom.

US President Donald Trump earlier this month threatened military action over what he described as the killing of Nigeria’s Christians — a claim the Nigerian government rejects.

The country of 230 million people is the scene of long-brewing conflicts that have killed both Christians and Muslims, often indiscriminately.

Four days after the St Mary’s children were taken, no group has claimed the abduction or contacted the school demanding ransom.

“At this moment, what we want is to get our 265 students and pupils back, and I’m calling on the federal government and the state government to join forces,” Reverend Bulus Yohanna of Kontagora Catholic diocese told AFP.

“Please help us… to see them back” and “reunite with their parents”.

For Ibrahim, the government is his only hope to see his son back.

“We don’t know any other way to bring these children if not through the government. I appeal to the government to do all within its powers to see their children are back,” he said, speaking in the local Hausa language.

Health worker Cidi Mohamed, 27, recalled hearing gunshots at the school on the night of the raid and then seeing the kidnappers leave with the children. “They put the children at the front and the back” of motorcycles, he said.

Global conflict monitoring group ACLED has recorded 42 incidents of violence targeting students in Nigeria this year, which is a decline from 71 in 2024.

About 40 percent of the abductions involved ransom demands.

“Fragmented bandit groups and other armed actors are the most common perpetrators in these abductions or kidnappings, while Islamist groups are far less frequently responsible for targeted violence against students,” said ACLED.

AFP