A neighborhood lawmaker informed CNN Monday that “near 50 folks, together with kids” had been killed after attackers stormed into St. Francis Catholic Church within the metropolis of Owo and started “capturing sporadically.”
“The loss of life toll was fairly giant,” stated Adeyemi Olayemi, the legislator representing the Owo constituency within the Ondo State House of Assembly. “So far, we now have counted near 50 useless our bodies, together with kids. I noticed the our bodies of many youngsters.”
Olayemi added that “the attackers got here in bikes and began capturing sporadically … they killed many individuals contained in the church.”
Laide Ajanaku misplaced her each dad and mom within the grotesque assault.
“We heard it was an explosion at first, then we began panicking and calling everybody for data,” Ajanaku informed CNN Monday.
“Somebody had my dad’s cellphone. I nonetheless do not know who that particular person was. The particular person picked up and stated my dad had been injured and had been taken to the hospital, however he did not know something about my mum’s whereabouts. He later stated my dad did not make it. We ultimately bought by means of to a priest pal who confirmed that my mum had died as nicely.”
Ajanaku stated her dad and mom’ our bodies had been later recognized on the morgue. Her father John Adesina Ajanaku, 67, and mom Olabimpe Susanah, 64, by no means missed church on a Sunday, she stated.
“They by no means missed Mass. My dad was a knight and the chairman of the Catholic Men Organization. He was very non secular and doctrinal. There was little question in my thoughts that they’d witnessed the assault on the very least, however I did not know that they might be so affected,” Ajanaku stated, including that the church can maintain about 500 folks when full.
State police couldn’t affirm the overall variety of casualties, a police spokesperson informed CNN Sunday, nor might they but determine these behind the assault.
A police assertion stated, “the assailants approached the church in the course of the service, began capturing from exterior the church whereas others numbering about 4 shot immediately into the church,” citing a preliminary investigation.
Ondo State Governor Rotimi Akeredolu stated he was “shocked” by the assault and referred to as it a “black Sunday in Owo.”
Ajanaku stated her dad and mom had been all the time collectively, even in loss of life. She stated she wasn’t stunned they died collectively, as one could not dwell with out the opposite.
Pope Francis stated he was praying for the victims who had been “painfully attacked at a time of celebration,” a press release from the Vatican stated.Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari described the deadly capturing of Owo worshippers as “heinous” including that the nation “shall by no means give in to evil and depraved folks.”Lethal assaults by motorbike-riding gangs are uncommon in southwestern Nigeria. Such assaults are extra widespread in giant elements of the nation’s north, which is consistently beneath siege by Boko Haram terrorists and marauding gunmen recognized regionally as ‘bandits.’The Owo church assault comes one week after one other church tragedy when 31 folks had been killed and others injured throughout a stampede at a church occasion within the southeastern Nigerian metropolis of Port Harcourt.