{"id":404794,"date":"2021-04-06T09:16:02","date_gmt":"2021-04-06T09:16:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/?p=404794"},"modified":"2021-04-06T11:30:30","modified_gmt":"2021-04-06T11:30:30","slug":"more-than-1800-prisoners-escape-after-nigeria-prison-attack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/more-than-1800-prisoners-escape-after-nigeria-prison-attack\/","title":{"rendered":"More Than 1,800 Prisoners Escape After Nigeria Prison Attack"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Nigeria(SONNA)-More than 1,800 inmates have escaped from a prison in Nigeria after it was attacked by gunmen, officials say.<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The attackers reportedly entered the prison yard in the south-eastern town of Owerri by using explosives to blast the administrative block.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Six prisoners have reportedly returned, while 35 refused to escape.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Police have accused the banned separatist group, the Indigenous People of Biafra, of carrying out the attack. It has reportedly denied involvement.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The Nigerian Correctional Service has confirmed that 1,844 inmates escaped from the jail in Imo state.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Heavily armed men stormed the Owerri Custodial Centre in the early hours of Monday, after arriving in pickup trucks and buses, the service said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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A police spokesperson said the attackers carried rocket-propelled grenades, machine guns, explosives and rifles.<\/p>\n

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President Muhammadu Buhari called the attack an “act of terrorism” carried out by “anarchists”. He called upon security forces to capture the attackers and the escaped prisoners.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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A spokesman for the Indigenous People of Biafra separatist movement told the AFP news agency that accusations it was behind Monday’s attack were “lies”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Imo state has long been a breeding ground for separatist groups, while relations between the central government and indigenous Igbo population are strained.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Since January several police stations and vehicles across south-eastern Nigeria have been attacked and large amounts of ammunition stolen. No-one has claimed responsibility for the attacks.<\/p>\n

@BBC NEWS<\/p>\n

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Nigeria(SONNA)-More than 1,800 inmates have escaped from a prison in Nigeria after it was attacked by gunmen, officials say. The attackers reportedly entered the prison yard in the south-eastern town of Owerri by using explosives to blast the administrative block. Six prisoners have reportedly returned, while 35 refused to escape. Police have accused the banned […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":404795,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6,78],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-404794","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=404794"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404794\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":404796,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404794\/revisions\/404796"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/404795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=404794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=404794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=404794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}