Nigeria has sent additional troops and planes to search for the 110 schoolgirls believed to have been abducted by Boko Haram activists a week ago.

The girls went missing after jihadists raged their school in the town of Dapchi in the north-eastern Yobe state on 19 February.

President Muhammadu Buhari said it was a “national disaster” and apologized to the young girls’ families.

The assault has restored recollections of the Chibok schoolgirl abduction in 2014.

Outrage has been growing among the girls’ families in the midst of reports that soldiers had been pulled back from key checkpoints in Dapchi a month ago.

Occupants say that Nigeria’s security forces, supported by military fighter jets, later repulsed the assault.

Specialists at first denied that the students had been captured, saying they were escaping their attackers.

However, they later conceded that 110 young ladies were absent after the assault.

Dapchi, which is around 275km (170 miles) north-west of Chibok, went under assault last Monday, causing teachers and students from the Government Girls Science and Technical College to escape into the encompassing shrub.