Nigeria girls' abduction: Protest march in Abuja

Angry relatives of the missing schoolgirls staged a protest outside Nigeria's parliament on Tuesday

Demonstrators are to march through the Nigerian capital Abuja to press for the release of some 190 schoolgirls abducted by militants two weeks ago.

They say they will march to the National Assembly and demand more action from the government, which has been criticised for not doing enough.

The Islamist group Boko Haram has been blamed for abducting the girls from their school in Chibok, Borno state.

Boko Haram has not yet made any response to the accusation.

The group, whose name means "Western education is forbidden" in the local Hausa language, has been blamed for 1,500 deaths in attacks this year alone.

'Million-woman march'

A "million-woman protest march" has been called by the Women for Peace and Justice organisation on Wednesday to demand more resources for securing the girls' release.

Anger has mounted in recent days. Parents have criticised the government's search and rescue efforts and the number of missing girls has been disputed.

"May God curse every one of those who has failed to free our girls," Enoch Mark, whose daughter and two nieces were among the students abducted, told AFP news agency.

On Tuesday, a local official said some of the girls may have been taken to neighbouring states, where they have been forced to marry the militants.

The girls were seized from their school late at night

Mr Bitrus, a Chibok community leader, said 43 of the girls had "regained their freedom" after escaping, while 230 were still in captivity. He was adamant that this figure - higher than previous estimates - was correct.

Swathes of north-eastern Nigeria are in effect off-limits to the military, allowing the militants to move the girls towards, or perhaps even across, the country's borders with impunity, says the BBC's Will Ross in Abuja.

On Tuesday, dozens of women from Borno state staged a demonstration outside Nigeria's parliament, calling for the rescue of their daughters, AFP reports.

"Our grievance is this: for the past two weeks and this is the third week, we have not heard anybody talking to us," the agency quotes protest leader Naomi Mutah as saying.

The government has said the security forces are searching for the girls, but its critics say it is not doing enough.

The students were about to sit their final year exam and so are mostly aged between 16 and 18.

Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau first threatened to treat captured women and girls as slaves in a video released in May 2013.

It fuelled concern at the time that the group is adhering to the ancient Islamic belief that women captured during war are slaves with whom their "masters" can have sex, correspondents say.