(Lagos) A still undetermined number of people were killed by gunmen in a Catholic church in Nigeria during the Pentecost mass on Sunday, Pope Francis lamenting the death of “dozens of faithful”.
Updated yesterday at 7:46 p.m.
The attack, denounced as a “heinous murder of the faithful” by President Muhammadu Buhari and which has not been claimed, occurred during the morning service at St Francis Catholic Church in the city of Owo, in Ondo State (southwest), usually spared from jihadists and criminal gangs active in other parts of the country.
“The pope has learned of the attack (which occurred) at the church of Ondo, in Nigeria, and the death of dozens of faithful, including many children, during the celebration of Pentecost”, indicated the press service of the Vatican in a statement.
“As the details of the incident are being clarified, Pope Francis prays for the victims and for the country, painfully affected during a moment of celebration, and entrusts them to the Lord, so that he sends his Spirit to comfort them,” he added.
The Nigerian authorities have not yet established a precise toll of the killing.
“It is still early to say exactly how many people have been killed. But many worshipers lost their lives while others were injured in the attack,” state police spokeswoman Ibukun Odunlami told AFP.
A witness, who gave only his first name, Abayomi, told AFP that at least 20 worshipers died in the attack. “I was passing through the neighborhood when I heard a loud explosion and gunshots inside the church,” he said.
He said he saw at least five armed men inside the church before fleeing.
Ondo State Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu in his statement called on the security forces to find the attackers after this “despicable and satanic attack”.
According to the state police spokeswoman, they attacked the church with firearms and explosives.
Many hotbeds of insecurity
The attack comes on the eve of the ruling APC party launching its primaries ahead of the 2023 presidential election to snag the succession of Muhammadu Buhari, a former army commander who will step down after two terms.
Security remains a major challenge in Africa’s most populous country and the continent’s largest economy.
Attacks on religious sites are particularly sensitive in Nigeria, where tensions sometimes flare up between communities in a country whose predominantly Christian southeast and predominantly Muslim north.
This type of attack is, however, rare in the relatively peaceful southwest of the country.
The Nigerian army, on the other hand, faces many hotbeds of insecurity in the rest of the country. A jihadist insurgency has been raging for 12 years in the northeast, gangs of looters and kidnappers terrorize the northwest and center, and the southeast is the scene of separatist movements.
The jihadist group Boko Haram, present in the northeast of the country, has already targeted churches during a conflict that has left 40,000 dead and 2 million displaced in Nigeria.