FIFTY of the students abducted from a Roman Catholic boarding school in north-western Nigeria last Friday have escaped captivity, church leaders say.

Two hundred and sixty-five people remain missing after last week’s attack on St Mary’s Catholic and Secondary School, Papiri, of whom 12 are staff members, the diocesan secretary of Kontagora, Fr Jatau Luka Joseph, said in an update reported by Vatican News.

The Bishop of Kontagora, the Rt Revd Bulus Dauwa Yohanna, said: “While we rejoice over the return of these 50 children who escaped, I urge everyone to continue praying for the rescue and safe return of the remaining victims.”

The identity of the armed group that attacked the school has not been ascertained, but the incident took place amid a upsurge in violence in Nigeria, in which Christian institutions have been targeted.

Last month, the President of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), the Most Revd Daniel Okoh, said that “many Christian communities in parts of Nigeria, especially in the North, have suffered severe attacks, loss of life, and the destruction of places of worship” (News, 17 October).

In an address in St Peter’s Square, Rome, on Sunday, the Pope made a “heartfelt appeal for the immediate release of the hostages and urge the competent authorities to take appropriate and timely decisions to ensure their release”.

President Trump has threatened to sanction Nigeria for armed gangs’ acts of violence, saying that Christians are being persecuted in the country.

But the Nigerian government disputes the suggestion that the violence has a religious dimension and says that portraying it as Christian persecution is a “gross misrepresentation of reality”.

“Terrorists attack all who reject their murderous ideology — Muslims, Christians, and those of no faith alike,” a government statement issued in September said.

Mass abductions from schools are a recognised tactic of criminal gangs as well as Islamist groups such as Boko Haram. The payment of ransoms has been outlawed in an attempt to curb the practice, BBC News reports.

On Monday of last week, 20 girls, reported to be Muslim, were kidnapped from another school in northern Nigeria. Two people were killed and 38 were abducted in an attack on a church in Kwara state, also in the north-west.