Lagos, Nigeria
CNN
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A woman who lost her parents in the southwestern Nigerian city of Owo said she regularly attended the Catholic Church, where Dozens killed in mass shooting And on Sunday many were injured.
A local lawmaker told CNN on Monday that “about 50 people, including children” were killed after attackers broke into St. Francis Catholic Church in downtown Owo and began “sporadically shooting”.
“The death toll was quite high,” said Ademi Olayami, a legislator representing the Owo constituency in the Ondo State House of Assembly. “Till now, we have counted around 50 bodies including children. I saw bodies of many children.”
Olemi said that “the attackers came in motorcycles and started shooting sporadically … they killed several people inside the church.”
Laid Ajnaku lost both his parents in the gruesome attack.
“We first heard it was an explosion, then we panicked and called everyone for information,” Ajnaku told CNN on Monday.
“Someone had my dad’s phone. I still don’t know who that person was. The man picked up and said that my father was injured and was taken to the hospital, but he did not know anything about my mother’s whereabouts. Later he said that my father did not make it. We eventually met a priest friend, who confirmed that my mother had also died. ,
Ajnaku said the bodies of his parents were later identified in the morgue. He said his father John Adesina Ajnaku, 67, and mother Olabimpe Susannah, 64, never left church on Sundays.
“He never left Mass. My father was a knight and president of a Catholic men’s organization. He was very religious and doctrinaire. There was no doubt in my mind that he had at least witnessed the attack, but I don’t know. Was that they would be so affected,” Ajanaku said, adding that the church can fill about 500 people.
State police could not confirm the total number of casualties, a police spokesman told CNN on Sunday, nor have they yet identified the people behind the attack.
“The attackers approached the church during the service, started shooting from outside the church, while others shot about four directly into the church,” a police statement said, citing preliminary investigations.
Ondo state governor Rotimi Akeredolu said he was “shocked” by the attack and called it “Black Sunday in Owo”.
Ajnaku said that his parents were always there, even in death. She said that she was not surprised that they died together, as one cannot live without the other.
Pope Francis said he was praying for the victims who were “painfully attacked during the festival” Statement told the Vatican.
Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari described the fatal shooting of Owo worshipers as “heinousSaying that the country “will never bow down to the evil and wicked people.”
deadly attack motorbike gang are rare in southwestern Nigeria. Such attacks are more widespread in large parts of the north of the country, which is constantly under siege by Boko Haram militants and gunmen known locally as ‘bandits’.
The Ovo church attack comes a week after another church tragedy that killed 31 and injured others during a stampede at a church event In the southeastern Nigerian city of Port Harcourt.