Dozens of people were killed in an attack by armed men on a Catholic church in the town of Owo, Ondo state, in southwestern Nigeria, witnesses to the massacre and official sources confirmed.
The exact number of deaths after the shooting and bomb attack on the parish of Saint Francis, whose parishioners were celebrating the Pentecost festival, is still unknown. However, the first counts spoke of at least 50 people. As confirmed by Deputy Ogunmolasuyi Oluwole, among the dead were many children.
A worker at the federal hospital in Owo told a local newspaper that more than 50 people had been taken to hospital after the attack. “They continue to bring people to the hospital, some of them have been confirmed dead and others are still breathing, but at the moment, I cannot specify the number of deaths,” said the professional from the medical center.
Nigeria suffers from incessant bandit attacks and mass kidnappings for lucrative ransoms, especially in the center and north-west of the country.
Recently, the southeast of the country has also been the scene of serious kidnappings and murders that the authorities attribute to the separatists of the Indigenous People of Biafra, a group that advocates the secession of that territory.
Added to this insecurity is the jihadist threat that has plagued the northeast of the country since 2009, caused by the Boko Haram group and, since 2015, its Iswap faction (Islamic State in West Africa Province).
