Pope urges release of 315 seized in Nigerian mass school kidnapping

VATICAN CITY - Pope Leo XIV called Sunday for the release of over 300 hostages taken from a Catholic school in one of the largest mass kidnappings in Nigeria.

"I learned with immense sadness the news of the kidnappings of priests, faithful, and students in Nigeria and Cameroon," he said.

The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) on Saturday said gunmen had kidnapped more than 300 students and teachers in raids on two schools in the country.

"I make a heartfelt appeal for the immediate release of the hostages," Leo said, expressing his "deep sorrow, especially for the many young boys and girls kidnapped and for their anguished families".

"Let us pray for these brothers and sisters of ours and that churches and schools may always and everywhere remain places of safety and hope," he said at the end of the Angelus prayer.

Gunmen on Monday stormed a secondary school in Kebbi state, abducting 25 girls. That was followed by an early Friday raid on St Mary's co-education school in Niger state.

The two abduction operations and an attack on a church in the west of the country, in which two people were killed and dozens abducted, came as US President Donald Trump threatened military action over what he called the persecution of Christians by radical Islamists in Nigeria.

Nigeria is still scarred by the kidnapping of nearly 300 girls by Boko Haram jihadists at Chibok in northeastern Borno state more than a decade ago. Some of those girls are still missing.