At least 50 people were killed when gunmen opened fire into a Catholic church in the southwest area of the region during a mass on Sunday, with victims including women and children.
Funmilayo Ibukun Odunlami, a police spokesperson for Ondo State, said that the suspects fired their firearms at people outside and inside the church building, killing and injuring worshippers. She did not disclose how many people were killed or injured in the incident at St. Francis Catholic Church in the town of Owo and added that police were investigating the shooting.
Nigeria Mass Shooting
In a statement, Ondo state Gov. Arakunrin Oluwarotimi Akeredolu, who visited the crime scene and injured persons in hospitals, described the Sunday attack as a "great massacre" and a "vile and satanic attack" that should not be allowed to happen ever again.
Authorities were not immediately able to identify the identity and motive of the attackers in the tragic incident. Catholic Church spokesman in Nigeria, Reverend Augustine Ikwu, said that the shooting, which happened while the Holy Mass was going on, left many feared dead, many others injured, and the Church violated, as per Reuters.
A doctor who works at a hospital in Owo said that at least 50 bodies were brought into two hospitals in the town from the attack. The health professional, who declined to be named because he was not authorized to speak to the press, added that there was a desperate need for blood donations to treat the injured.
President Muhammadu Buhari condemned the attack, calling it "heinous," as the Vatican said that Pope Francis was praying for the victims who had been "painfully stricken in a moment of celebration."
According to the Associated Press, Buhari said that "only friends from the nether region could have conceived and carried out such dastardly act." He said the country would never give in to evil and wicked people, noting that darkness will never overcome the light.
Vile and Satanic Attack
Nigeria's Ondo is widely known as one of the country's most peaceful states but has been caught up in a rising violent conflict between farmers and herders. The nation's security forces did not immediately respond to questions regarding how the attack happened or if there were any leads regarding the identities of the suspects.
Video footage from the attack appeared to show a scene where church worshippers were lying in pools of blood while people around them wailed. Ikwu added that the horrifying attack left many in the community devastated. He said that they turned to God to console the families of the lives that were lost.
A volunteer at one of the town's hospitals, Sunday Ajibola, said that he saw "nothing less than 50 dead bodies" and several others with injuries from bullets and explosives being treated by medics. A lawmaker in Ondo, Adeyemi Olayemi, said that the attack is believed to have been conducted by ethnic Fulani terrorists, sometimes referred to as bandits. The group has staged relentless attacks predominantly in northern Nigeria but also other parts of the nation, The Guardian reported.
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