Authorities say the ‘state of affairs is underneath management’, and that suspected Boko Haram members got here for comrades held in jail.
Armed attackers have raided a jail close to the capital of Nigeria, the place residents reported listening to a number of explosions.
The Kuje Medium Safety Custodial Centre on the outskirts of Abuja got here underneath assault late on Tuesday, authorities stated.
“The armed squad of the Nigerian Correctional Service and different safety businesses hooked up to the Custodial centre have responded and calm has been restored to the ability and the state of affairs is underneath management,” a jail service spokesman stated in an announcement.
Shuaib Belgore, everlasting secretary on the inside ministry, advised journalists outdoors the jail – which has 900 inmates – that a safety officer was killed in the course of the raid and three others had been injured.
He stated suspected Boko Haram attackers got here for members held within the jail.
“They got here particularly for his or her co-conspirators, however with a purpose to get them…, a few of them are within the normal (jail) inhabitants in order that they broke out and different folks in that inhabitants escaped as properly however lots of them have returned,” Belgore stated.
He added that greater than 600 inmates had fled however half had been recaptured and a manhunt was persevering with.
“They've reported themselves to the police, some we now have efficiently retrieved from the bushes the place they had been hiding, and (as of) now we now have retrieved about 300 out of about 600 that bought out of the jail cells,” he stated.
Exterior the jail, the charred stays of a number of autos with bullet holes had been seen on Wednesday morning, testifying to gunbattles within the neighborhood in the course of the raid.
Assaults on prisons by armed males searching for to free inmates have turn into widespread occurrences within the West African nation lately. Greater than 7,000 folks escaped from prisons throughout the nation between 2010 and 2021, in keeping with an Al Jazeera evaluation of media studies and official escapee numbers.
Final April, greater than 1,800 inmates escaped from Owerri jail in southwest Imo state, with armed males utilizing explosives to blast by way of partitions after a gun battle with guards.
The newest incident got here hours after armed males ambushed an advance convoy of Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari within the northern state of Katsina.
The president was not within the convoy on the time of the assault, which occurred on the best way to Buhari’s hometown of Daura, close to the border with Niger. Two folks had been injured.
An announcement from the president’s workplace stated the attackers had been “repelled by the army, police and safety personnel accompanying the convoy”.
It was not instantly clear who carried out the assault.
Nigeria has skilled spiralling insecurity lately, with safety forces battling a grinding 13-year armed rebellion by the Boko Haram group and its splinter teams within the nation’s northeast and closely armed legal gangs that function within the northwest. The violence has progressively moved in direction of the nation’s centre, the place Abuja is positioned.
In the meantime, armed males domestically often called bandits usually raid and loot villages and perform mass abductions for ransom regardless of army operations in opposition to them in northwest and central Nigeria.
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