One mother said she went "almost mad" with agony when she learned her 13-year-old daughter, Precious Sim, was kidnapped along with other students from a northern Nigeria high school in 2021.
Taking matters into her own hands, Esther Joseph sold her possessions to pay the 2 million naira ($1,256) ransom to the kidnappers in exchange for her daughter's release.
Precious had been kidnapped from the Bethel Baptist High School of Maraban Damish in Kaduna State and released to her family after one month of captivity, Joseph told Reuters.
Kidnappings at schools in Nigeria are sadly a norm for Africa's most populous nation. A decade ago, jihadist group Boko Haram seized 276 students from a girls' school in Chibok in Borno State. Some of the girls remain missing to this day.
The tactic, though, caught on quickly as criminal gangs began to copycat the kidnappings as a means to secure ransom payments. With no ideological connection, authorities are at a loss for how to stop them.
As Nigeria's economy and poverty levels continue to drop at high intensity, the abductions have become a daily scene as people resort to desperate measures.
Two-hundred-and-eighty-six students and staff were kidnapped from a school in northern Nigeria last week by gunmen who have demanded a total of 1 billion nairas ($620,432) for their release.
On Monday night, around 60 people were abducted in Buda, in the same state, residents said - bringing the total of those kidnapped across the country in the first two weeks of March to nearly 750, according to Amnesty International.
"Kidnapping for ransom has eclipsed other motivations for abductions, especially political reasons," research firm SBM Intelligence said in a July 2023 report.
Speaking on last week's mass kidnapping, Information Minister Mohammed Idris said that the government's stance relies solely on security forces' securement of the hostages' release. Paying for the release of any hostage is a crime in Nigeria and carries a jail sentence of at least 15 years.
With no viable solution, communities are struggling to gather their savings to try and meet the ransom demands.
Despite Precious' return to school, many other victims have dropped out entirely in fear of more abductions.
At least 10.5 million children are out of school in Nigeria, the highest number in the world, according to the U.N. children's agency UNICEF. That is due to insecurity, including abductions and a long-running insurgency in the northeast.
Kidnappings are "a major driver of withdrawal of children from schools in northern Nigeria," said Isa Sanusi, director at Amnesty International in Nigeria.
"No parent wants to go through the horror of having children abducted by ruthless gunmen... On and off, schools are closed due to security concerns and the children end up missing out on education. Because girls are usually raped when abducted, many girls have been withdrawn from schools and married off at an early age."
7,000 people are estimated to have been abducted throughout Nigeria since President Bola Tinubu took office in May, according to Reuters.
Successive Nigerian governments are deploying soldiers and bombing alleged hideouts used by gunmen, mainly in Kaduna, Zamfara, and Katsina states.
However, it's important to note that the gunmen using motorbikes control large swathes of land. Schools in remote and rural areas are considered an easy target, lacking any form of security.
Sanusi said that it was difficult to get accurate figures for school kidnappings.
He said that, according to Amnesty's findings, more than 780 children were abducted for ransom in 2021 alone. As of 2022, more than 700 schools were closed in seven of Nigeria's 36 states.
"Some schools have reopened, while others remain indefinitely closed," Sanusi said.
