After emerging from hiding, Nwovo said they saw “so many” bodies lying in their own blood.
Florence Obi said her sister, Stella Nzelu, fled the church after the shooting and the explosion, only to run into one of the outside gunmen, “who shot her in the stomach at close range.” Obi said her sister underwent surgery to remove the bullet and ”she is feeling better now.”
Steven Omotayo, who lives nearby, heard the gunshots and rushed to the scene.
“I saw a lot of dead bodies — both young and old, even children,” he said. “The people came in and started shooting from the gate.”
He said the church has three entrances and the main entrance was said to have been locked, making it difficult for many to escape.
“They were just shooting. If they see anyone trying to escape or stand up, they will just shoot the person,” he said. “Everybody standing was bombarded with bullets.”
The Rev. Vincent Anadi, who was away from his church at the time, said the gunmen also set off some kind of explosive or grenade.
He said he was making his way back to the church when he saw people running away chaotically, including two altar servers that he knew.
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They “stopped me and said, ‘Father, father, father, stop, stop! Don’t go to the parish. They are killing people in the parish!” Anadi recounted.
Many Nigerians expressed shock and anger over the attack in Owo, a small town of traders and government workers located 50 kilometers (31 miles) from the Ondo state capital of Akure. The central location of the church raised questions as to how the gunmen got there unnoticed.
Rahaman Yusuf said many people tried to find out the fate of their relatives after the attack. “Some came only to realize they are dead,” he said, adding that they also went to hospitals to see if their loved ones were among the wounded.
Olalekan Agboola was in Lagos when he learned his 70-year-old mother, Caroline, was killed, and he rushed to Ondo. In a telephone interview from the town, he grew emotional as he recalled talking to her by phone on Saturday and how “she used to call us and pray for us.”
Workers at the Federal Medical Center in Owo struggled to treat scores of wounded from the attack. The Nigeria Medical Association directed all available doctors in the region to help.
Some of the wounded were in a “very bad state” and needed surgery, according to a doctor there who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to journalists.
“I have attended to a good number of casualties, but what I saw yesterday was far beyond whatever I have seen before in my life,” the doctor said. “This calamity befell all age grades, from toddlers to the old ones.”
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Blood supplies at the hospital ran out, and a plea for more has gone out, the doctor added.
Mahamat Saleh Annadif, head of the United Nations Office for West Africa and the Sahel, said he hopes “the perpetrators of this horrific terrorist act against a church will be swiftly apprehended and brought to justice.”
Pope Francis decried “this act of unspeakable violence” in a condolence telegram sent by the Vatican’s secretary of state on his behalf to the Ondo bishop.
“His Holiness prays for the conversion of those blinded by hatred and violence so that they will choose instead the path of peace and righteousness,” it said.
By CHINEDU ASADU and LEKAN OYEKANMI
Asadu reported from Abuja, Nigeria. Frances D’Emilio in Rome contributed.
This article originally appeared here.
