Gunmen dressed in police uniforms seized scores of hostages from an Education Ministry building yesterday in what appeared to be Baghdad’s biggest kidnapping.

In a chillingly efficient raid, about 20 armed men stormed the offices, brushing aside five armed guards at the door. The scale shocked a city where kidnappings of 50 people at a time have become the norm. Abed Theyab, the higher education minister, first reported that up to 130 people were taken. Later the office of Nouri al-Maliki, Iraq’s Prime Minister, said 45 to 50 had been taken and some released.

It took the gang, shouting: "Separate the women from the men," between 10 and 15 minutes to seize and drive off with their prisoners in a heavily-armed convoy.

Alaa Makki, head of the Iraqi parliament’s education committee, stunned the elected body with the news and demanded that the Prime Minister and his security chiefs take action. He called the abductions a national catastrophe. They came on a day when at least 82 Iraqis were reported killed in violence across the country.

The gunmen had a list of names and talked their way into the compound, identifying themselves as representatives of the Government’s anti-corruption body making a security check for a planned visit by a US diplomat, Mr Makki said.

Those missing include the deputy general directors of the research scholarships and cultural relations directorate, which organises overseas placements for Iraqi academics, other employees and visitors. It was not clear if the kidnappers targeted one religious group, as is often the case, or whether the attack was aimed at the country’s dwindling professional class. A university dean and a prominent Sunni geologist have been murdered in the past four weeks, bringing the death toll for academics to at least 155 since 2003.

Major-General Abdel Karim Khalaf, the interior ministry spokesman, said five police commanders were arrested after the kidnapping.

The Interior Ministry has been accused of harbouring criminal gangs and Shia militias that target the country’s Sunni minority. There have been a series of high-profile kidnappings since March, when 50 employees of a Sunni-owned security firm were abducted by men in police uniforms.

Survivors and witnesses gave terrifying accounts. A female employee, who was freed by her captors, told The Times that the kidnappers pushed all the women into a room away from the men and took their phones.

"The office manager asked them, ‘who are you? Tell us’ and they hit him with a Kalashnikov and told everyone to shut up," she said.

The women then watched as their male colleagues were herded out to the abductors’ vehicles, she said.

Abu Saif, 35, a guard at the neighbouring passport office, said he watched the abductors pull up in a convoy of 17 to 20 cars, including six Chevrolet pick-up trucks, with mounted PKC machineguns.

Times Recommends

• Henning Mankell: ‘If Wallander was alive, I wouldn’t be a friend of his’
• Secret society's skull and crossbones for sale
• Nigerian leader vanishes after medical treatment