Fifty of the 315 children kidnapped by gunmen from a Catholic school in Nigeria’s Niger state on Friday have escaped.
The Christian Association of Nigeria says they have been reunited with their families.
A major army-led search and rescue operation is underway for the remaining 265 children and the 12 teachers who were taken with them.
Authorities in several Nigerian states ordered the closure of schools following a mass kidnapping in Niger and a smaller hostage situation in Kebbi state on Monday, when 20 pupils were abducted from a boarding school.
In another development, 38 people kidnapped at a religious service in Kwara state last week were freed on Sunday, the state governor said.
Two people were killed in the attack on the Christ Apostolic Church in Eruku.
Orders were given to close many schools in Kebbi, Niger, Katsina, Yobe and Kwara states.
News of the children’s escape came as a welcome relief to the families and to a country that has been agonizing over the fate of hundreds of schoolchildren kidnapped in northwestern Nigeria.
According to a Christian group involved in the case, the students managed to escape between Friday and Saturday in what is described as a brave and risky attempt to flee their captors.
The students and teachers were from St Mary’s School in Papiri, Niger State. Previous reports spoke of 303 students and 12 teachers kidnapped.
Their number exceeds the 276 kidnapped during the infamous Chibok mass kidnapping in 2014.
Local police say gunmen stormed St Mary’s at around 02:00 (01:00 GMT) and kidnapped students staying there.
Niger State Governor Mohammed Umaru Bongo announced on Saturday that all schools in the area would close, warning that it was “not the time to cast blame.”
Calling for the release of those kidnapped, Pope Leo XIV expressed “immense sadness” and urged authorities to act quickly.
Dominic Adamu, whose daughters attend school but were not taken, told the BBC: “Everyone is weak… This took everyone by surprise.”
A distraught woman tearfully told the BBC that her nieces, aged six and 13, had been kidnapped, adding: “I just want them to come home.”
The army, police and local vigilantes are carrying out a search for the children, combing nearby forests and remote routes believed to have been used by the gunmen.
Niger state authorities said St Mary’s school had ignored an order to close all boarding schools following intelligence warnings about an increased risk of attacks. The school has not commented on that allegation.
The kidnapping of people for ransom by criminal gangs, known locally as bandits, has become a major problem in many parts of Nigeria.
The payment of ransoms has been banned in an attempt to cut off the supply of money to criminal gangs, but it has had little effect.
On Monday, more than 20 students, who the BBC says are Muslim, were kidnapped from a boarding school in Kebbi state.
Authorities have ordered the closure of all secondary schools and universities.
Nigerian President Bola Tinubu has postponed foreign trips, including this weekend’s G20 summit in South Africa, to address security concerns.
This week’s attacks follow claims by right-wing figures in the United States, including President Donald Trump, that Christians are being persecuted in Nigeria.
For months, activists and politicians in Washington have been alleging that Islamist militants are systematically attacking Christians. The Nigerian government has dismissed this claim.
Earlier this month, Trump said he would send troops to Nigeria “with guns” if the African nation’s government “continues to allow the murder of Christians.”
The Nigerian government has called claims that Christians are being persecuted “a gross misrepresentation of reality.”
One official stated that “terrorists attack all who reject their murderous ideology: Muslims, Christians and those without faith alike.”
In the northeast, jihadist groups have been fighting the state for more than a decade.
Organizations that monitor violence say most of the victims of these groups are Muslims because most attacks occur in the Muslim-majority north of the country.
Deadly attacks between mostly Muslim herders and mostly Christian farmers also frequently occur in central Nigeria.
However, analysts say these are often motivated by competition for resources, such as water or land, rather than religion.
The Islamist militant group Boko Haram took 276 girls from their school in the city of Chibok in 2014.
The incident attracted international attention and sparked a global campaign calling for his return, which included an intervention from the then First Lady of the United States, Michelle Obama.
Many have since escaped or been freed, but around 100 remain missing.
