Armed men release more than 1,800 detainees in attack on Nigerian prison

YENAGOA, Nigeria (Reuters) – More than 1,800 prisoners have fled in southeastern Nigeria after escaping when heavily armed men attacked their prison using explosives and rocket-propelled grenades, authorities said.

Nigerian police say they believe a banned separatist group, the Indians of Biafra (IPOB), is behind the attack in the town of Owerri, but a spokesman for the group has denied involvement.

The southeastern secessionist movement is one of the many serious security challenges facing President Muhammadu Buhari, including a 10-year Islamist insurgency in the northeast, a series of school kidnappings in the northwest and piracy in the Gulf of Guinea.

Buhari said the attack in a city near the oil-rich region of the Niger Delta, which is the mainstay of Africa’s exporter and largest economy, was an “act of terrorism”. He ordered security forces to capture the fleeing prisoners.

The attackers stormed the facility around 2:15 a.m. (0115 GMT) Monday, according to the Nigerian Correctional Service.

“The Owerri Custody Center in Imo State has been attacked by unknown gunmen and forcibly released a total of 1,844 detainees in custody,” his spokesman said in a statement late Monday.

Police said the attackers used explosives to blow up the prison’s administrative block and entered the prison yard.

“Preliminary investigations have shown that the attackers … are members of the outlawed natives of Biafra (IPOB),” said Frank Mba, a spokesman for the Nigerian Police Force.

IPOB wants independence for a region in southeastern Nigeria called Biafra. One million people died in a 1967-70 civil war between the Nigerian government and secessionists there.

Security in the region has deteriorated in recent months. Several police stations have been attacked since January, with large amounts of stolen ammunition and reports of the paramilitary wing of the IPOB, the Eastern Security Network (ESN), facing the army.

But an IPOB spokesman told Reuters that the group had not carried out the prison raid.

“IPOB and ESN were not involved in the attack in Owerri, Imo State. It is not our mandate to attack the security personnel or the penitentiary units “, said the IPOB spokesperson in a telephone call.