Several hundred inmates, including about 60 jihadists, escaped Tuesday night from a prison on the outskirts of Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, after an attack, the government said Wednesday.
The 64 jihadists incarcerated in the facility located in the town of Kuje have escaped, « none of them are still inside, » Defense Minister Bashir Magashi told reporters Wednesday, adding that it was « very likely » that Boko Haram fighters carried out the attack.
The Islamic State (IS) organization, for its part, claimed responsibility for the prison attack on Wednesday.
« Islamic State fighters broke into a Nigerian government prison in the Abuja suburb of Kuje yesterday after tearing down its walls and managed to free dozens of prisoners, » EI announced via its propaganda arm Aamaq.
Commanders of Ansaru, an al-Qaeda affiliated jihadist group, including leader Khalid Barnawi, had been held in this medium-security prison facility in Kuje since their conviction in 2017.
Local residents reported hearing loud explosions and gunfire near the prison located just 40 km from the capital and the presidential villa on Tuesday night.
« We heard gunshots on my street. We thought it was armed robbers, » said one resident. « The first explosion came after the shots. Then there was a second and a third. »
President Muhammadu Buhari visited the scene Wednesday afternoon, where the charred wreckage of a bus and several cars appeared to be frozen in front of a destroyed part of the prison.
« I am disappointed in the intelligence system. How can terrorists organize, have weapons, attack a security infrastructure and get away with it, » Buhari said in a statement.
The Nigerian leader, under pressure because of widespread insecurity raging in the country, was due to leave on an official trip to Senegal shortly after visiting the prison.
By late Wednesday afternoon, more than 600 inmates had been « recovered » and less than 100 others were still at large, said prison service spokesman Abubakar Umar.
One security guard was killed in the attack, he added.
Prison officials are still trying to determine the exact number of inmates missing, Umar said.
In the morning, security forces brought back to the prison, in a black van, about 20 recaptured detainees, an AFP correspondent observed on the spot.
The former senior police officer, Abba Kyari, held at the Kuje Prison awaiting trial for drug trafficking, is still in custody, he added.
The army is also deployed to fight heavily armed criminal gangs, known locally as « bandits, » who terrorize the northwest and central regions, attacking villages and carrying out mass kidnappings.
Hours before the Kuje prison attack, gunmen also ambushed a detachment of President Muhammadu Buhari’s security guards – who were not in the convoy – near his hometown where he is scheduled to travel this weekend in the northwestern state of Katsina.
Two officers were slightly injured in the attack and the identity of the perpetrators remains unknown for the moment. « The attackers opened fire on the convoy (…) but were repulsed by the military, the police and the DSS agents », the Presidency said.
This ambush illustrates once again the almost generalized insecurity in the most populous country in Africa (215 million inhabitants).
In Nigeria, prisons, often overcrowded and guarded by overworked security forces, are frequent targets of attack.
Last year, more than 1,800 inmates escaped after heavily armed men blew up a prison in the south-east of the country, which is plagued by separatist unrest.
Laisser un commentaire