Attackers with explosives stormed a Catholic church and opened fire in southwest Nigeria on Sunday, killing “many” worshipers and wounding others, the government and police said.
The violence at St Francis Catholic Church in Owo town in Ondo State erupted during the morning service in a rare attack in the southwest of Nigeria, where extremists and criminal gangs operate in other regions.
Pope Francis said in a statement he had learned of the “death of dozens of faithful,” many children, during the celebration of the Christian holiday of Pentecost.
Photo: Reuters
“While the details of the incident are being clarified, Pope Francis prays for the victims and for the country,” he said.
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 worshipers.”
Photo: AP
Ondo Police Force spokeswoman Ibukun Odunlami said the armed attackers also used explosives, leaving an unknown number of worshipers dead.
“It’s still premature to say exactly how many people were killed, but many worshipers lost their lives while others were injured in the attack,” she said.
A spokesman for the Ondo State governor’s office said they would not be giving an official casualty figure for the moment.
However, a witness, who gave his name as Abayomi, told reporters that at least 20 worshipers had died.
“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 State, but Nigeria’s military is battling a 12-year-old extremist insurgency in the northeast, gangs in the northwest and separatist agitation in the southeast.
Boko Haram in the northeast targeted churches in the past as part of Nigeria’s conflict that has killed 40,000 and displaced 2 million more.
Kidnapping assaults are common in most parts of Nigeria, but mass gun attacks such as Sunday’s violence are rare in the country’s relatively peaceful southwest.
Ondo Governor Rotimi Akeredolu said that Sunday’s attack was a “vile and satanic attack” and appealed to the security forces to track down the assailants.
The attack comes a day before the ruling APC party starts primaries for its candidate in next year’s election to replace Buhari, a former army commander who steps down after two terms in office.
Security is to be a challenge for whoever wins the race to govern Africa’s most populous country and the continent’s largest economy.
Parts of northwest and north-central Nigeria in particular have been increasingly plagued by heavily armed gangs who raid villages, and target communities and schools for mass kidnapping attacks.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not