A video of some of the students kidnapped from the Federal College of Forestry Mechanization in Kaduna emerged on Saturday, showing them cowering on a forest floor as armed captors hit them with sticks.
Gunmen stormed the school early on Friday morning, leaving 39 students missing.
The attack is the fourth school abduction in northern Nigeria since December.
Video footage obtained by Daily Trust showed roughly two dozen students begging for help in English and Hausa. One says the captors want a N500 million ($1.31 million) ransom.
“If anybody comes to rescue them without the money they are going to kill us,” a male student says in the video as a man with a gun stands behind him.
College Provost Bello Usman and the mother of one kidnapped student on Saturday identified those shown in the video as some of the abducted students, including one pregnant woman. Usman declined to comment on the ransom request.
Executive secretary of the Kaduna State Emergency Management Agency Abubakar Sadiq said he was unaware of the video and that he had no authority to comment on the ransom demand.
Kaduna State Government had earlier on Saturday said nine more students were missing than previously thought – 23 females and 16 males.
On Friday, the state government said 180 students and staff members who were staying at the school were rescued.
President Muhammadu Buhari in a statement on Saturday urged that the missing students be found and returned safely to their families.
A parent of one of the abducted students Gloria Paul said she recognised her 20-year-old daughter, Joy Paul, in the video, wearing a pink headscarf.
“Please, government should help us get them released without hurting them,” she said outside the school on Saturday as tears rolled down her cheeks.
