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Victims of the attack by gunmen during a Sunday mass
service, receive treatment at the Federal Medical Centre in Owo, Ondo, Nigeria,
June 6, 2022. REUTERS/Temilade Adelaja
Survivors of an attack by unknown assailants
on a Catholic church in Nigeria lay weeping and writhing in pain at a local
hospital on Monday after suffering what a doctor described as lacerations,
bullet wounds and blast injuries.
At least 50 people including children were
killed, according to media reports, during the attack on St Francis Catholic
Church in the town of Owo, which took place during Sunday mass as worshippers
were celebrating the Christian holiday of Pentecost. Police have yet to release
a death toll.
Inside
the church, streaks of blood on the floors and walls, a broken lectern and pew,
plaster debris and abandoned items including shoes and a well-thumbed Bible
covered in shards of glass bore witness to the intensity of the violence.
"Immediately
they entered and started firing everywhere, so many people," said Alex
Michael, who was shot in the leg while protecting his children by hiding them
under chairs. He appeared dazed as he sat on his hospital bed.
Other survivors had limbs wrapped in
bloodstained bandages. One man writhed and moaned on his bed while a woman wept
as she embraced her brother. A 15-year-old victim lay silently with a drip in
his hand.
Dr Samuel Aluko, a registrar at the hospital,
said 27 adult victims were receiving treatment for a wide range of injuries,
some life-threatening. One woman had lost both legs.
Medical director Dr Ahmed Lasu said 13
children had been rushed to the hospital, of whom two were dead on arrival.
Owo is located in Ondo State in southwest
Nigeria, a part of the country that does not usually experience violent
conflict over religion. Authorities have said nothing about the identity or
motive of the attackers.
The Catholic bishop of the diocese of Ondo,
Jude Ayodeji Arogundade, described a scene of carnage after the attack.
"It was beyond what I ever imagined. A
lot of bodies right there in the church, blood-soaked bodies," he told AIT
television channel.
Pope
Francis and Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari were among those who expressed
horror on Sunday.
Ondo State Governor Arakunrin Akeredolu on
Monday directed that flags in the state should be flown at half-mast for seven
days.
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo and former Lagos
State governor Bola Tinubu, the frontrunners in the ruling party's primaries to
select its presidential candidate for next year, both visited the church.
Many shops in the town stayed closed.
Security forces were on the streets and helicopters passed overhead.
Southwest Nigeria is home to the Yoruba
ethnic group, who are divided roughly equally between Muslims and Christians.
The two communities live side by side peacefully.
An Owo resident said some local people were
blaming the church massacre on members of the Hausa-Fulani ethnic group, who
are predominantly Muslim and live mostly in northern Nigeria, with communities
in other regions.
Neither the police nor state authorities have
blamed any group.
There have been an increasing number of
outbreaks of violence in recent years between Fulani herdsmen seeking land for
their cattle to graze on and farmers from other ethnic groups seeking to shield
their lands.
Population growth and increasing aridity in
northern Nigeria are among factors that have driven Fulani herdsmen further and
further south, increasing tensions over land use.
In a separate incident, Catholic priest
Father Christopher Itopa Onotu was abducted during the weekend from his rectory
in the
town of Obangende in Kogi State, which neighbours Ondo to the north, the
Catholic diocese of Lokoja said.
"We
rely only on God for security because the government has continued to fail in
her responsibility to secure human lives and property," it said.
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