Many of the parents whose children were abducted 10 days ago from a boarding school in Nigeria are terrified - they do not want to talk to the authorities or journalists in case of reprisals from the kidnappers.
If they hear you say anything about them, before you know it they'll come for you. They'll come to your house and take you into the bush, one of them told the BBC. For his safety the BBC is not identifying him and is calling him Aliyu.
His young son is one of more 300 students abducted when armed men stormed the grounds of St Mary's Catholic School in Papiri village in the central state of Niger in the early hours of 21 November.
Some of the children taken are as young as five years old. About 250 are still reportedly missing, though state officials have said this number is exaggerated.
The incident is part of a recent wave of mass abductions in north and central Nigeria - some of which have been blamed on criminal gangs, known locally as bandits, who see kidnapping for ransom as a quick and easy way to make money.
Our village is remote, we are close to the bandits, explained Aliyu, whose son is still among the missing.
It's a three-hour drive to where they hide. We know where they are, but we can't go there ourselves, it's too dangerous.
He is desperate with worry - especially as vulnerable captives kept in forest hideouts have died during previous abductions, whether from sickness or because ransoms have not been paid.
I feel so bitter and my wife hasn't eaten for days… We're not happy at all. We need someone to help us to take action.
A few days before the Papiri kidnapping, 25 girls were taken from their school in Maga, which is 200km (125 miles) further north in Kebbi state.
One of the students escaped before the rest were rescued by the security forces last week from what the authorities said was a farm settlement.
Bandits tend to live in cattle camps deep in the bush. The gangs are largely composed of ethnic Fulani people, who are traditionally nomadic herders.
No details have been released about whether a ransom was paid to free the girls from Maga.
In fact, it is illegal to pay ransoms in Nigeria. However, if they are not paid hostages can be - and have been - killed.
Relatives tend to crowdfund or in the case of mass school abductions, the authorities are sometimes suspected of negotiating for their release.
But there has been a surprising change of approach in some areas where villages have been at the mercy of bandits for the last decade and have given up hope of getting help from the security forces.
It has led some of these rural communities to come up with their own solutions. In the north-west, those communities that have been severely affected by these mass kidnappings have struck so-called peace deals with these bandits in exchange for access to mines, explained David Nwaugwe, a security analyst.
Many states in the north-west are rich in untapped mineral deposits - especially gold, a profitable prospect for bandit gangs. These deals, according to him, have been effective in some areas.
However, while peace deals in the north have yielded tentative security gains, analysts note that this has only shifted insecurity, as some gangs set their sights on regions further south.
The option for rural communities is not simply about negotiation anymore, as parents in Papiri remain desperate for their children's safe return amidst a growing climate of fear and uncertainty.
