Shooters attacked Nigerian prisons. 1,800 inmates escaped in Owerri
More than 1,800 inmates have escaped prison in southeast Nigeria after militants armed with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades launched a series of coordinated attacks targeting the prison overnight, authorities said.
Nigerian police believed a banned separatist group, the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), was behind the attack, but a spokesman for the group denied involvement. The secessionist movement in the southeast is one of several serious security challenges facing President Muhammadu Buhari, including a decade-long Islamist insurgency in the northeast, a spate of school kidnappings northwest, and piracy in the Gulf of Guinea.
According to residents, Uche OkafoThe attacks began at about 2 am in the town of Owerri in Imo state and lasted for about two hours. The gunmen destroyed part of the prison walls with rocket-propelled grenades, machine guns, explosives, and rifles, freeing 1,844 prisoners. One police officer was shot and injured in the attack.
Shooters also assaulted various other police and military buildings, authorities said. “Efforts are in top gear to rearrest the fleeing detainees,” said Nigeria prison spokesman Francis Enobore, adding that 35 inmates stayed behind during the prison break.
"The Owerri Custodial Centre in Imo state has been attacked by unknown gunmen and forcefully released a total of 1,844 inmates in custody," a Nigerian Correctional Service spokesman said in a statement. The attackers stormed the facility at around 2:15 am local time on Monday, he said. The attackers used explosives to blast the prison's administrative block and entered the prison yard, police said in a separate statement.
The coordinated attacks came less than two weeks after another wave of violence in southeastern Nigeria when at least a dozen security officers were killed during attacks on four police stations, military checkpoints, and prison vehicles. There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but police said the gunmen were from the Eastern Security Network – a military wing of the dominant pro-Biafra secessionist group in southeast Nigeria, the Indigenous People of Biafra (Ipob).
But a spokesman for IPOB told Reuters in a phone call that the group was not involved. Several police stations have been attacked in south-eastern Nigeria since January, with large amounts of ammunition stolen. No groups have claimed responsibility for the attacks.
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