40 dead, over 80 injured in Owo attack

The Ondo State Commissioner for Health, Banji Ajaka, has said that 40 people were killed in last Sunday’s shooting at a church in Owo.

Gunmen stormed the church on Sunday morning, opened fire on the congregation, and also detonated explosives as the worshippers scampered for safety.

Police said the gunmen got to the church at about 11.30 a.m.

Oluwole Ogunmolasuyi, the lawmaker representing Owo Constituency I, who visited the scene shortly after the attack, had put the casualty figures at at least 70 people killed and injured.

On Tuesday, Governor Rotimi Akeredolu said 80 worshippers were victims of the attack, including 22 people who died.

On Wednesday, the state government reviewed the casualty figures to 127, including 40 dead.

“The situation report as at 12 midnight, on Tuesday 7/6/22 at St. Louis Hospital, Owo, 39 people were involved and 13 deaths (confirmed). At the Federal Medical Centre, Owo, a total number of persons involved is 84 and number of corpses in the FMC mortuary is 25; female, 17, and eight males,” Mr Ajaka said in a statement.

He also added that two deaths were recorded from two private hospitals in the state.

Meanwhile, the state governor has promised to immortalize all who died from the attack.

The governor said this while hosting a delegation of bishops in the southwest who had paid him a condolence visit on Wednesday.

He promised to build a memorial park in honour of the deceased persons.

“We will have a Memorial Park here, where those who died in the attack will be buried,” he said.

“My Bishop sir, we will find a good place as a Memorial Park. It will also be my suggestion that even if there are people who have retrieved their family or members of their family, we must still have a symbolic grave there for them. And it will be there forever, it is not something we can forget and we should never forget it.”