Many children and pregnant women were among the dead, said Oluwole Ogunmolasuyi, a local politician in Ondo state, on Monday. Heavily armed perpetrators stormed St. Francis Church in the city of Owo on Whitsunday during a service, shot indiscriminately at the faithful and set off explosives.
“It was barbaric, we’ve never seen anything like it,” Ogunmolasuyi said after visiting the church and a hospital where dozens of the injured are being treated. “The number of victims is between 70 and 100,” said Ogunmolasuyi. President Muhammadu Buhari condemned the attack. “This country will never give in to evil and evil people, and darkness will never conquer the light,” Buhari was quoted as saying on Twitter.
Ondo State Governor Rotimi Akeredolu called the attack “disgusting and satanic” and added that “it is a calculated attack on the peace-loving people of Owo”.
The background to the attack are growing ethnic and religious tensions in Africa’s most populous country of about 206 million people, said Eric Humphery-Smith, an analyst at security consultancy Verisk-Maplecroft. “The massacre destroyed the community,” the Roman press service “Fides” quoted a statement from the diocese on Monday, as Kathpress reports.
The Bishop of Ondo, Jude Arogundade, urged all believers to “remain calm, respect the law and pray for peace and a return to normalcy in the community, state and country”.
Source: Nachrichten
