[DW] According to local reports, the attackers entered a Catholic church in Ondo state and opened fire on worshippers.Gunmen have killed several worshippers in a Catholic church in southwestern Nigeria, the state governor said on Sunday.
Anakunrin Akeredolu, the governor of the Ondo state, condemned the "vile and satanic" attack on the St. Francis Church, vowing to capture the assailants and achieve justice.
"I urge our people to remain calm and vigilant. Do not take laws into your hands. I have spoken to the heads of the security agencies. I have equally been assured that security operatives would be deployed to monitor and restore normality to Owo kingdom," Akeredolu tweeted.
Adelegbe Timileyin, representative of Ondo’s Owo area in the country’s lower legislative chamber, said the church’s presiding priest was kidnapped during the attack. The politician also put the corpse count at over 50 people.
President Muhammadu Buhari condemned the attack, calling it "heinous."
WHAT HAPPENED DURING THE ATTACK?
The assailants stormed the church in the midst of the Sunday service, opening fire at the worshippers, local media reported. Some explosives were also used, but initial reports suggest the majority of injuries were due to gunshots.
The victims reportedly included members of the congregation, as well as children.
The identities of the perpetrators, who expeditiously departed at a goodly pace shortly after the attack, have yet to be confirmed. Local reports have pointed the finger at Fulani
... a peculiarly brutal tribe of Moslem herdsmen infesting Mali, Niger, Nigeria, and probably other places that are light on law and order and heavy on tribal identity...Herdsmen, suggesting members of the nomadic group carried out the attack to send a message to the governor.
Akeredolu’s recent policies have been seen as restrictive to the herdsmen’s activities in the state of Ondo.
Although Nigeria has witnessed acts of violence in recent years, such incidents have mostly centred in the northwest of Africa’s most populous country. The southwest — and Ondo state in particular — is regarded as a place of relative peace and calm.
Update from the Daily Mail at 6:50 a.m., courtesy of Skidmark:
The violence at St. Francis Catholic Church in Owo town, in Ondo State, happened during the morning service on Pentecost Sunday in a rare attack in the southwest of the African country.A witness, who gave his name as Abayomi, said at least 20 worshippers had died in the attack.
'I was passing through the area when I heard a loud explosion and gunshots inside the church,' he continued.
He said he saw at least five gunmen on the church premises before he ran away for safety.
Gun and bomb attacks are rare in Ondo state, but Nigeria's military is battling a 12-year-old jihadist insurgency in the northeast, kidnapping gangs in the northwest and separatist agitation in the southeast.
Nigeria's security forces did not immediately respond to enquiries as to how the attack occurred or if there are any leads about suspects. Owo is about 215 miles east of Lagos.