Nearly 400 escaped prisoners remain at large in Nigeria on Monday after unidentified gunmen stormed the Abolongo Prison in southwestern Nigeriaâs Oyo state on Friday, killing two guards and releasing 837 inmates, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
A spokesman for Abolongo Prison, Olanrewaju Anjorin, told AFP on October 25 he visited the facility on October 24 and learned that 391 of the prisonâs recently escaped inmates âwere still at large.â
Anjorin said 837 inmates escaped the prison on October 22, adding that Nigerian authorities had already recaptured 446 of the fugitives as of October 25.
Anjorin, officially a spokesman for Nigeriaâs federal correctional service in Oyo state, confirmed the jailbreak at Abolongo Prison on October 23. In a statement to the press, he said, â837 inmates awaiting trial escaped from the Medium Security Custodial Centre in Abolongo area of the state following an attack by gunmen on the facility on Friday night [sic].â
âThe invaders were said to have arrived the center heavily armed with sophisticated weapons and, after a fierce encounter with officers on guard, gained entrance into the yard using dynamite to blast the wall,â the spokesman detailed.
The office of Oyo State Gov. Taiwo Adisa issued a statement on October 24 revealing two of the prisonâs security personnel died in the attack on October 22.
â[T]he governor commiserated with the families of the two slain security agents: a corporal of the Nigerian Army ⊠and an Operative of the Oyo State Amotekun Corps,â Nigeriaâs Vanguard newspaper reported Sunday.
A third security guard at Abolongo Prison was seriously injured during Fridayâs jailbreak and remained in âcritical conditionâ at a local hospital as of Sunday, according to Vanguard.
The October 22 attack in Oyo state marked Nigeriaâs third mass jailbreak this year. Unidentified gunmen have reportedly perpetrated all three incidents using explosive devices to gain entry to the correctional facilities.
A group of armed men stormed a prison in central Kogi state on September 13, using rifles and explosives to overtake the facility and allow 266 inmates to escape. Five months earlier, on April 5, a âlarge numberâ of gunmen targeted a prison in southeastern Nigeriaâs Imo state. The group used âsophisticated weaponsâ and explosives to âforcefully releaseâ 1,844 of the prisonâs inmates, the Comptroller-General of the Nigerian Correctional Service, John Mrabure, said in a statement.
Nigerian authorities have blamed the countryâs recent spate of prison attacks on unidentified criminal gangs.
âJihadist group Boko Haram, which launched an insurgency in northeast Nigeria in 2009, has frequently attacked prisons to free inmates,â AFP noted on Monday. Boko Haram is an Islamist terror group notorious for mass kidnappings of schoolchildren.