Distraught parents have gathered outside a boarding school in north-western Nigeria after gunmen kidnapped 140 children, the latest in a wave of mass abductions targeting schoolchildren and students in the country. About 1,000 students and pupils have been abducted in Nigeria since December, with most eventually released after negotiations with local officials. Monday’s raid at the Bethel Baptist high school was at least the fourth mass school kidnapping in Kaduna state over the period 

• Attackers kidnap 140 pupils from Nigerian boarding school

Gunmen overpowered security staff at Bethel Baptist high school in Kaduna state

Gunmen have kidnapped 140 children from a boarding school in north-western Nigeria, a school official has said, in the latest in a wave of mass abductions targeting schoolchildren and students.

Heavily armed criminal gangs in north-west and central Nigeria often attack villages to loot, steal cattle and abduct people for ransom, but since the start of the year have increasingly targeted schools and colleges.

Analysis: reported death of Boko Haram’s leader will increase the influence of Islamic State affiliates

For more than a decade, Nigerian security services and their international supporters have struggled to end Boko Haram’s brutal reign of terror over north-eastern Nigeria.

But few observers of the conflict are celebrating – even though it appears increasingly likely that Abubakar Shekau, the Islamist extremist movement’s notoriously violent leader, is dead, its strongholds overrun and remaining fighters scattered.

Abubakar Shekau dead or seriously wounded after clashes in forest, Nigerian authorities say

Intelligence officials in Nigeria have claimed the leader of Boko Haram is dead or seriously wounded after trying to kill himself to avoid capture during clashes with a rival extremist faction.

There is no confirmation of the claims, and Nigeria’s intelligence services and military have reported Abubakar Shekau’s death many times before.