Gunmen armed
with dynamite freed at least 144 inmates in a raid on a prison in central
Nigeria's Kogi state, the same facility attacked by Boko Haram Islamists in
2012, police said Monday.
"They blew
up the thing with dynamite”, national police spokesman Emmanuel Ojukwu told AFP
of the attack which took place late Sunday. "Up to 50 inmates
escaped," he said, but added that some have been re-arrested.
One of the
prisoners, whose identity has yet to be made known, was also killed.
The Koton Karfi
prison in Kogi is thought to hold many suspected Boko Haram fighters, but
Ojukwu said the raid was not linked to the five-year Islamist uprising, blaming
it instead on "criminal activity”.
Boko Haram claimed
a February 2012 attack on the same prison that freed more than 100 inmates. A
former spokesman for the insurgent group known as Abul Qaqa, whom the military
claimed to have killed, said at the time that the raid was aimed at freeing
several of its members.
Kogi state
governor Idris Wada toured the site on Monday to assess the damage, his
spokesman Jacob Edi told AFP.
No comments:
Post a Comment