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BLOODY SUNDAY Ondo Gov. Rotimi Akeredolu (third from left) points to a bloodstained floor after an attack at St. Francis Catholic Church in Ondo’s Owo town in southwestern Nigeria on Sunday, June 5, 2022. AFP PHOTO
LAGOS, Nigeria: Gunmen with explosives stormed a Catholic church and opened fire in southwest Nigeria on Sunday, killing “many” worshippers and wounding others, the government and police said.
The violence at St. Francis Catholic Church in Owo town in Ondo State erupted during Mass in a rare attack in Nigeria’s southwest, where jihadists and criminal gangs operate in other regions.
A Vatican statement said Pope Francis had learned of the “death of dozens of faithful,” many of these children, during the celebration of the Christian holiday of the Pentecost.
“While the details of the incident are being clarified, Pope Francis prays for the victims and for the country,” it added.
No group claimed responsibility for the attack.
The motives and the exact death toll were not immediately clear, but Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari condemned the “heinous killing of worshippers.”
State police spokesman Ibukun Odunlami said the gunmen also attacked the church with explosives, leaving an unknown number of worshippers dead.
“It’s still premature to say exactly how many people were killed. But many worshippers lost their lives while others were injured in the attack,” she told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
A spokesman for Ondo Gov. Rotimi Akeredolu’s office said it would not be giving an official casualty figure at the moment.
But a witness, who gave his name as Abayomi, told AFP at least 20 worshippers died in the attack.
“I was passing through the area when I heard a loud explosion and gunshots inside the church,” he said, adding that he saw at least five gunmen on the church premises before he ran for safety.
Attacks on religious sites are particularly sensitive in Nigeria, where tensions sometimes flare between communities in a country with a mostly Christian south and a predominantly Muslim north.
Gun and bomb attacks are rare in Ondo, but Nigeria’s military is battling a 12-year-old jihadist insurgency in the northeast, gangs in the northwest and separatist agitation in the southeast.
Boko the Haram jihadist group in the northeast targeted churches in the past as part of Nigeria’s conflict that has killed 40,000 and displaced 2 million more.
Kidnappings are common in most parts of Nigeria, but mass gun attacks like Sunday’s violence are rare in the country’s relatively peaceful southwest.
Akeredolu said Sunday’s assault was a “vile and satanic attack” and appealed to security forces to track down the assailants.
The attack comes a day before the ruling All Progressives Congress party starts primaries for its candidate in the 2023 election to replace Buhari, a former army commander who steps down after two terms in office.
Security will be a major challenge for whoever wins the race to govern Africa’s most populous country and the continent’s largest economy.
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