'Anguish and pain' for parents of kidnapped children, says Irish nun

Sister Mary says "the majority of the children that are missing are from the primary school"

A nun from Donegal has described the "unbelievable anguish and pain" of parents whose children have been kidnapped at a Catholic school in Nigeria.

Local police said armed men stormed St Mary's School in Papiri at around 02:00 local time (01:00 GMT) on Friday, abducting hundreds of students who were staying there.

The school is managed by the Sisters of Our Lady of Apostles (OLA), which has links to Ireland.

Mary Barron, the Superior General of the Missionary Sisters of OLA, said some of the children taken are as young as five-years-old.

The Christian Association of Nigeria also said 12 members of staff were taken during the early morning raid.

Sister Mary, who's currently in Ghana, said Thursday started off as a "normal night" for the children when they went to bed, but "everyone in the compound was awakened by the noise of what was obviously an attack" in the early hours of the morning.

"People are unfortunately familiar with this type of attack in this area so they knew straight away what was happening."

Sister Mary says the kidnappers "spent three hours ransacking"

Sister Mary said the "bandits" arrived on motorcycles.

"They spent three hours ransacking, gathering up the people and basically herding them out of the compound and into the bush."

She described the children taken as "tiny".

"In this part of the world where there's no education available, people send their children to boarding school from nursery school, so you have very small children, the majority of the children that are missing are from the primary school," she said.

'Very rough conditions'

Sister Mary says the children will "be constantly moving, so it's exhausting"

Speaking on Radio Ulster's Good Morning Ulster programme, Sister Mary described the situation for the parents as "absolutely horrific".

She said for some families "all of their children have been taken".

"Families will send all of their children to the school, because they don't have an option."

Sister Mary said she has "no idea" of the conditions the children are being held in, but said: "They are usually taken into the bush in very primitive and very rough conditions and we pray that they are being cared for."

"They'll be constantly moving, so it's exhausting. It's a particularly hot time of year," she said.

"To my knowledge to date no contact has been made" by the kidnappers."

'Keep hope alive'

Sister Mary says 50 of the children escaped being kidnapped by climbing over a wall

"I really keep hope alive. I really believe if there is a concerted effort if we get enough people mobilised with the resources necessary to try to find these children then it can happen."

She said that 50 children escaped the kidnapping by jumping over the wall and running into the bush.

"We presumed they were with the attackers, but by Saturday some of them had arrived home and that's how 50 of them had escaped.

"They said they walked and walked, because they knew they couldn't walk back to the school, so they just kept walking until they found something familiar," she said.

There have been other recent attacks in Nigeria

Authorities in several Nigerian states ordered schools to shut following the mass abduction in Niger and another smaller hostage-taking in Kebbi state on Monday 17 November when a teacher was killed and 25 pupils were kidnapped from a boarding school.

In response to the spate of abductions, Nigerian President Bola Tinubu has ordered the recruitment of an additional 30,000 police officers.

In another development, 38 people abducted from a church service in Kwara state were freed on Sunday, the state governor said.

Two people were killed in the attack on Christ Apostolic Church in Eruku.

Orders were given for many schools to close in states including Kebbi, Niger, Katsina, Yobe and Kwara.