A video clip emerged of some of the kidnapped students from a college in northwestern Nigeria, showing them shuddering on a forest floor as their kidnappers beat them with sticks.
Gunmen kidnapped 39 male and female students after they stormed the Federal College of Forestry Mechanism in Kaduna state on Thursday evening, the fourth such incident of students being kidnapped in northern Nigeria since December.
A video clip posted on social media showed nearly 24 students, asking for help in English and Hausa.
One of them says the kidnappers want a ransom of 500 million naira ($ 1.31 million).
As one of the students said in the video - and behind him was a man carrying a pistol - that "if anyone comes to save them without money, they will kill us."
Bello Muhammad Othman, the senior official at the college and the mother of one of the kidnapped students, said - yesterday Saturday - that those who appeared in the clip were some of the kidnapped students, and that among them was a pregnant woman.
Rescue students
Abu Bakr Sadiq, executive secretary of the Kaduna State Emergency Management Agency, said that he was not aware of this video recording, and that he was not authorized to comment on the ransom demand.
Earlier in the day, Kaduna State Security Commissioner Samuel Arwan said that the number of missing students is 9 more than those previously thought to be 23 female and 16 male students.
He added, "The Kaduna state government is in close contact with the college administration, while the security services' efforts continue to track down the missing students."
The armed gang stormed the school on the outskirts of Kaduna city near the military academy on Thursday, and Arwan said that 180 other students and employees who were present at the school were rescued early Friday morning.
Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari called - in a statement on Saturday - to find the missing students and return them safely to their families.