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Gunmen attacked a Catholic church in southwest Nigeria during
mass on Sunday, killing at least 50 people including women and
children, according to a hospital doctor and media reports,
Trend reports
citing Al
Arabiya.
Several Nigerian news outlets said gunmen had fired at
worshippers and detonated explosives at St Francis Catholic Church
in the town of Owo. The identity and motive of the attackers was
not immediately clear.
The authorities have yet to give details of the attack.
Funmilayo Ibukun Odunlami, police spokesperson for Ondo state, said
police would issue a further statement soon.
“It is so sad that while the Holy Mass was going on, unknown
gunmen attacked St Francis Catholic Church…leaving many feared
dead and many others injured and the Church violated,” said
Catholic Church spokesman in Nigeria, Reverend Augustine Ikwu.
Ikwu said the bishop and priests from the parish had survived
the attack unharmed.
A doctor at a hospital in Owo told Reuters that at least 50
bodies had been brought in to two hospitals in the town from the
attack. The doctor, who declined to be named because he is not
authorised to speak to the press, also said there was a need for
blood donations to treat the injured.
President Muhammadu Buhari condemned the attack, calling it
“heinous”, and the Vatican said Pope Francis was praying for the
victims who had been “painfully stricken in a moment of
celebration”.
Nigeria is battling an insurgency in the northeast and armed
gangs who carry out attacks and kidnappings for ransom, mostly in
the northwest.
In the southwest, attacks such as this are rare. Ondo state
governor Arakunrin Oluwarotimi Akeredolu cut short a trip to the
capital Abuja and returned to Ondo after the attack. “We shall
commit every available resource to hunt down these assailants and
make them pay,” he said in a statement.
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