BEIRUT: Authorities continued Thursday their efforts to secure the release of Mohammad Nibal Awada, a 12-year-old student who was kidnapped for a $1 million ransom, security sources said.

The sources said the kidnappers had not set a deadline for the payment of the ransom for the release of Awada, who was snatched at gunpoint in Beirut Wednesday morning.

The kidnappers made their ransom demand in telephone calls to the family, the sources said.

Awada was waiting outside his home in Wata Moseitbeh for a school bus at around 7 a.m., when four unidentified armed gunmen in a Nissan Sunny pulled up and kidnapped him, according to security sources.

During one of the calls with the kidnappers, the boy’s father, Nibal Awada, tried to persuade the kidnappers to reduce the ransom, according to the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The kidnappers have not yet responded to Awada’s offer.