Bloody Sunday in Nigeria, where an attack on a Catholic church resulted in dozens of deaths, including women and children.
The motive for the massacre that took place in the South West is not clear but could be ascribed to the bloody inter-ethnic and inter-religious tensions between local populations and the Fulani Islamic nomadic shepherds who cross the most populous African country.
As reported by the local police and media, citing witnesses, at least five armed men opened fire and threw bombs at the faithful inside the Church of San Francesco in Owo, in the state of Ondo, killing several people.
In the evening the blood toll was still uncertain and ranged between 20 and 50 victims, with an unspecified number of even very serious injuries or reported as dead in hospital.
A video circulating on the internet shows the bodies of some of the victims spilled on the church floor in pools of blood.
However, the diocese of Ondo denied that priests or faithful were kidnapped, as witnesses had reported at first.
The Vatican has made it known that the Pope, informed of the attack on the church perpetrated during the celebration of Pentecost, "
The attack was not claimed, but a local organization representing the interests of the Yoruba ethnic group pointed the finger at the Fulani shepherds.
The assault on the church of Saint Francis would be directed against Governor Akeredolu for his "strict compliance with the law on open pasture", the Afenifere association argued, adding that "the terrorists, mostly Fulani foreigners, should be captured and killed ".
A track also accredited by the director of the pontifical foundation Aid to the Church (Acs), Alessandro Monteduro: "If banditry in Nigeria a few decades ago made use of bows and arrows, in recent years the Fulani have equipped themselves with Ak47, very widespread in the country after the fall of Gaddafi.
That of the Fulani is one of the many crises gripping Nigeria which, in addition to the Boko Haram, is also terrorized by bands of looters and kidnappers in the north-west and center, while the south-east is the scene of separatist movements.
There have been massacres in the past with an even greater number of victims in violence between Fulani and permanent farmers.
The phenomenon is mainly due to the scarcity of fertile land created by climate change and the desertification of northern Nigeria which are driving nomadic cattlemen to find fodder for their livestock further south, devastating farmers' fields.
One of the priests of St. Francis Catholic Church, Father Andrew Abayomi,
