Gunmen abduct 10 more people in Nigeria, police say

Gunmen have abducted 10 women and children in the latest kidnapping to rock Nigeria, police said on Tuesday, as parents of dozens of children taken from a Catholic school last week pleaded for their release.

Police said the Monday night raid in the western state of Kwara targeted the village of Isapa, which neighbours another village where at least 35 people were kidnapped a week before.

Last week, armed gangs also abducted more than 300 children from a Catholic school in Nigeria's north-central Niger state, 25 schoolgirls from another school in the northwestern state of Kebbi, and 13 girls in the eastern state of Borno.

Nigeria is facing a long-running security crisis fuelled by terrorist attacks and violence by "bandit" gangs that raid villages, kill people and kidnap for ransom.

Manhunt launched

Kwara state police commissioner Ojo Adekimi said the attackers in the latest raid were herders who had "shot sporadically" and abducted women and children from local farming families.

"There is a manhunt for them. Policemen are in the bush with local hunters," he told AFP.

One woman managed to escape and return to the village, he said.

The raid comes one week after gunmen killed two people and kidnapped at least 35 worshippers in an attack on a church in Eruku, around 20 kilometres from Isapa.

The abducted worshippers have since returned home.