The Nigerian National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) confirmed on Tuesday 22 dead and 50 injured in Sunday’s attack on a Catholic church in the south-west of the country, less than the at least 50 indicated by the Nigerian Council of Lay Catholics. .
“We can confirm that 22 people were killed and 50 injured in the attack on the San Francisco Catholic Church in Owo city,” said Olanrenwaju Kadiri, NEMA’s head of operations in Ondo state (where Owo is located).
the wounded are receiving medical treatment in hospital and some of them are in critical conditionKadiri added.
Unidentified gunmen disguised as members of the congregation fired shots and used explosives in the attack on the church, police said.
“The armed men, according to preliminary investigations, entered the church with weapons and materials suspected of being explosives,” Olumuyiwa Adejobi, a police spokesman, said in a statement.
“Police investigators who were part of the first responders who arrived at the scene first recovered rounds of AK-47 ammunition. [espingardas]while the Explosive-Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Explosive Devices confirmed the use of explosives”, added Adejobi.
According to local media, Most of the victims were children and women..
The new death toll came a day after the national president of the Nigerian Catholic Lay Council, Henry Yunkwap, said in a statement that more than 50 people had been killed in the attack, although authorities did not openly give a statement. specific figure. of dead and wounded.
Scrap described the incident as a “barbaric act”carried out by “animals in human form”.
Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari and Ondo Governor Oluwarotimi Odunayo Akeredolu also condemned the massacre.
No matter what happens, this country will never give in to bad people, and the darkness will never defeat the light. Nigeria will eventually win,” Buhari said.
Pope Francis on Monday lamented the attack and prayed for “the conversion of those who are blinded by hatred and violence,” according to the Vatican.
The high representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell, joined those who condemn the bloody attack, calling it a “despicable” act.
The attack came after at least 31 people were killed on May 28 during a stampede at a religious event in the southern Nigerian city of Port Harcourt.
Nigeria suffers from incessant bandit attacks and mass kidnappings for lucrative ransoms, but these tend to occur in the country’s center and northwest, making the church massacre in the country’s southwest unusual.
Added to this insecurity is the terrorist threat that has plagued the northeast of the country since 2009, caused by the Boko Haram group and, since 2015, by its ISWAP (Islamic State in West Africa Province) faction.
Source: Observadora
