After gunmen carried out a blitz attack on a prison in Nigeria’s north-central Kogi State, at least 240 prisoners have escaped the facility after the attack, prison authorities said on Monday.
“The incident took place at about 23:45 on 12th September, 2021,” said Francis Enobore, spokesman for the Correctional Service, according to CNN. He added in the same press statement that the correctional facility in Kogi’s Kabba district came under fire from unidentified gunmen, who raided the site and “immediately engaged the armed guards in a fierce gun battle.”
Police authorities in the region stated that “gunmen in large numbers attacked from all angles and didn’t give the correctional service any opportunity of responding,” but no specific category of prisoners was targeted for release by the attackers.
Authorities said no fewer than 294 inmates were in custody at the time of the attack, stating that “224 are pre-trial detainees and 70 convicted inmates”.
One police inspector was killed and another was injured and taken to the hospital. Meanwhile, three of the escaping prisoners have been rearrested as the recapture procedure had been activated to find the fleeing inmates, according to the authorities’ statement reported by CNN.
The jailbreak in Kogi comes five months after nearly 2,000 inmates broke free from a prison in Imo State, southeast Nigeria, after armed men invaded the custodial center and used explosives to blast parts of the prison, authorities said at the time.
The Nigeria Police Force blamed secessionist groups in the southeast region for the attack which occurred in April.
Nigeria is struggling with one of its worst security crises in recent years as insurgency, separatist conflicts, banditry, and kidnappings for ransom remain on the increase.
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