LAGOS, June  6, 2022 (BSS/AFP) - Gunmen killed at least 21 people, 
including children, in an attack on a Catholic church in southwest Nigeria on 
Sunday, local officials said, in violence that drew widespread international 
condemnation.
       
The bloodshed at St. Francis Catholic Church in Owo town during a service 
was a rare assault in Nigeria's usually safer southwest and shocked a country 
grown used to jihadist attacks and mass kidnappings in the north.
       
Richard Olatunde, spokesman for the Ondo State governor's office, told AFP 
that dynamite exploded inside the church before gunmen opened fire on 
worshippers attending the service.
       
Blood stains still marked the St. Francis church floor and debris lay 
scattered around a day after the attack.
       
"They did not even enter the church, they were shooting through the 
windows," Olatunde said, confirming a death toll of 21 people.
      
 National Emergency Management Agency local representative Olanrewaju Kadiri 
said 22 people were killed, including several children, with another 40 people 
wounded.
       
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo arrived on Monday to visit some of the wounded.
       
Survivors described panic as worshippers fled a sudden outburst of gunshots.
       
"I ran back to the church and I saw my two children and we brought them 
here to the federal medical centre," Nzeadu Paulinus, a local resident who was 
away from the church when the shooting started and whose two children were 
wounded.
      
 "I saw so many people who were wounded, and the dead."
      
 The state government declared a seven-day mourning period for the victims, 
and ordered the national flag to be flown at half-mast in Ondo.
       
No group has so far claimed responsibility for the attack and the motives 
were not clear.
       
One witness told AFP he saw at least five gunmen on the church premises.
       
"I was passing through the area when I heard a loud explosion and gunshots 
inside the church," the witness, who gave his name as Abayomi, told AFP.
       
       - Jihadists, gangs -
    
       
      
 Nigeria's military is fighting a 12-year-long jihadist insurgency in the 
northeast and heavily armed criminal gangs often carry out looting raids and 
mass kidnappings in the northwest and north-central parts of the country.
       
But large-scale attacks in Nigeria's southwest are relatively rare, 
although kidnappings for ransom have become increasingly common.
       
Boko Haram jihadists in the northeast have targeted churches in the past. 
Nigeria's jihadist conflict has killed 40,000 and displaced two million more in 
the northeast.
       
President Muhammadu Buhari condemned Sunday's "heinous killing of 
worshippers" while Pope Francis offered prayers for the victims.
       
The UN Special Representative for West Africa and the Sahel, Mahamat Saleh 
Annadif, condemned what he called a "barbaric terrorist attack".
       
The attack came a day before the ruling APC party started primaries for its 
candidate in the 2023 election to replace Buhari, a former army commander who 
steps down after two terms in office.
       
Security will be a major challenge for whoever wins the race to govern 
Africa's most populous country and the continent's largest economy.
       
As well as jihadists and criminal gangs known locally as bandits, Nigeria's 
security forces are also dealing with separatist agitation in the southeast.