More than 50 people were killed in an attack on a church in Nigeria on Sunday

More than 50 people were killed in Sunday's attack by gunmen on a Catholic church in Ondo state in southwestern Nigeria, the country's Council of Catholic Laity said on Monday.
 
"Over fifty parishioners of Saint Francis Catholic Church in Owo, Ondo State, were killed by gunmen suspected to be bandits," the national president of the Catholic Laymen's Council of Nigeria, Henry Yunkwap, said in a statement.
 
Yunkwap said he spoke "as president of all Catholic laity to which the more than fifty victims belong", condemning "this barbaric act carried out by these animals in human form".

"The crime committed by the dead were only two: one, they were Christians, and secondly, because they were in church on Sunday worshipping God," the president said.
 
Yunkwap demanded "action and the urgent arrest and prosecution of the perpetrators of this evil act."
 
"What the victims now want from the government for their souls to rest in peace is the assurance that their killers will be arrested and dealt with in accordance with the laws of the land," he insisted.
 
Police spokesman in Ondo state, Funmilayo Odunlami, confirmed to Efe on Sunday that "more than two dozen were killed", without being able to specify the "exact number" or the perpetrators of the massacre.

A worker at the federal hospital in Owo told the local newspaper The Punch that more than fifty people had been evacuated to the centre after the attack, which took place during Sunday mass.
 
The governor of Ondo, Oluwarotimi Odunayo Akeredolu, said in a statement that "the vile and satanic attack is a calculated attack on the peace-loving people of Owo kingdom who have enjoyed relative peace over the years".
 
Pope Francis on Sunday prayed for the victims of the attack, the Vatican said, and Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari condemned the massacre.
 
"Whatever happens, this country will never surrender to evil people and darkness will never overcome light. Nigeria will eventually win," Buhari said.

The attack came after at least 31 people were killed on 28 May in a stampede at a church event in the southern Nigerian city of Port Harcourt.
 
Nigeria suffers incessant bandit attacks and mass kidnappings for lucrative ransoms, but these tend to take place in the centre and northwest of the country, which makes this incident in the southwest of the country strange.
 
Adding to this insecurity is the jihadist threat that has plagued the north-east of the country since 2009, caused by the Boko Haram group and, since 2015, by its ISWAP (Islamic State in West Africa Province) faction.