Abuja, Nigeria - The US said Nigeria "must do more to protect Christians" following a mass kidnapping across several churches in Kaduna state, as a high-level security meeting kicked off in Abuja on Thursday.

But in a speech, a senior State Department official leading the US delegation omitted any mention of Muslim victims of violence in Africa's most populous country.

The remarks come as Abuja has been under diplomatic pressure by Washington over violence that President Donald Trump says amounts to "genocide" and "persecution" of Christians.

That framing is rejected by the Nigerian government and independent analysts in the country, which faces overlapping security challenges that kill both Muslim and Christian civilians alike.

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"The government of Nigeria must do more to protect Christians and their right to practise their faith freely and safely," said Allison Hooker, State Department under secretary for political affairs, referencing the kidnapping of more than 170 people from several churches.

Hooker is the highest US government official to visit Nigeria under the Trump administration.

The attack in Kaduna state on Sunday was the latest mass abduction to rock the country, blamed on armed gangs known as "bandits."

Further controversy was stirred after police initially denied that the attack happened. Villagers who survived the kidnapping or escaped recounted the attack.

The kidnappers "surrounded the village entirely. If you run to one side, they'll be there, if you run to another, they'll be there," Ishaku Danzumi Kurmin, who escaped, told AFP.

"They beat us and took us to the bush," where they found a bandits leader. "They beat us again," he said, adding he hid in a water well and later escaped.

For Alice Joseph (42) whose parents were seized, kidnapping is commonplace.

"For the past four years, every year they come," she said, recalling that her husband and children were previously kidnapped.

"And now this year, my parents are among those kidnapped," including her brother, she said, sobbing, arms wrapped around her head in despair. "I now have no solace but God."

A blue plastic chair and music instruments lay on the floor of one of the churches when the state governor visited the area on Wednesday – four days after the raid.

According to an official source, 68 children and 56 women are among those in captivity.