Pope Leo XIV on Sunday called for the release of Catholic school students and teachers – among them more than 300 girls and boys aged 12-18 – taken hostage this week in Nigeria, and for the release of clerics taken hostage this week in Cameroon.

“With immense sorrow,” the pontiff told several thousand people gathered in St. Peter’s Square on Sunday for Mass and the Angelus prayer on the Solemnity of Christ the King and the Jubilee of Choristers, “I have learned of the kidnapping of priests, faithful, students, in Nigeria and Cameroon.”

“I feel great pain above all for the many boys and girls taken, and for their anguished families,” Leo said.

“I send a fervent appeal,” Leo said, “that the hostages be released immediately.”

“I exhort the competent authorities,” Leo said, “to take appropriate and timely decisions to ensure their release.”

“Let us pray for these, our brothers and sisters,” the pope said, “and let us pray that – always and everywhere – schools and churches be places of safety and hope.”

On Friday, kidnappers seized students and staff from St. Mary’s School, a boarding school in Niger state’s Papiri community. Early reports suggested the number of persons kidnapped was between 25 and 100.

Local authorities eventually confirmed the larger number, however, after a verification exercise that confirmed – among other things – the seizure of some 88 students who had attempted to flee the kidnappers.