Photo credit:AP

Armed kidnappers in Nigeria have released 28 of the more than 120 students who were abducted at the beginning of July from the Bethel Baptist High School in the northern town of Damishi.

The attackers stormed Bethel Baptist High School in northwestern Kaduna state on July 5, abducting students who were sleeping in their dorms.

The kidnapping was the latest by heavily armed gangs, known locally as bandits.

The 28 released students had been reunited with their parents after being released on Saturday, Joseph Hayab, the Bethel Baptist High School official.

“We were able to send out church buses to go to where the captors dropped them to pick them up,” he said.

In all, thirty-four of the kidnapped children were now free: five escaped earlier and one was released on health grounds, Hayab said.

Some money had been paid to the gang, he said, declining to say how much.

“The most important thing now is to get all the remaining children released,” he said.

Of the five children who escaped on July 21, two were found by police and the other three made their own way back to the school, Hayab said.