Two officers killed in attack on Anambra police facility

Two police officers have been killed in Anambra State, Nigeria’s South-east, in a deadly attack by gunmen on a police facility in the state in the early hours of Monday.

Some vehicles parked at the station’s premises were razed during the attack at the Zone 13 police headquarters at Ukpo, near Awka.

The slain officers have been identified as Ishaku Aura, an inspector, and Uzoma Uwaebuka, a police constable.

The commissioner of police and some senior police officers visited the scene of the attack, immediately after the incident, PREMIUM TIMES learnt.

PREMIUM TIMES could not immediately get a police comment on the attack, as the police spokesperson in the state was said to be in a meeting, apparently over the development.

There has been a spate of attacks on police officers and police facilities, lately, in the South-east and South-south regions, which has compounded the security challenges in the two regions.

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Apart from more than a decade of the Boko Haram insurgency in the North-east, several states in Nigeria have been struggling with kidnapping for ransom, banditry, frequent clashes between farmers and herders, and inter-communal conflicts.

The Anambra attack is coming a few days after governors and heads of security agencies in the five states in the South-east had a regional summit on security, where they agreed to establish a joint security outfit to check the insecurity in the region.

IPOB, a pro-Biafra group, has been accused of being responsible for some of the attacks against the police in the South-east, but the group has denied any involvement.