Ten people, including two police officers, were killed and several students kidnapped in south-eastern Nigeria, police said on Friday (May 7th) in an area of growing separatist tensions.
Read also: Nigeria: 29 students kidnapped in March released
Gunmen stormed the Obosi police station in Anambra state on Thursday, where police responded.
“
Two police officers paid the
ultimate price,” state police spokesman Ikenga Tochukwu said in a statement, adding that an investigation was underway to identify the perpetrators.
The attackers also set part of the post and two vehicles on fire before fleeing.
In a separate incident, security forces repelled an attack on Orlu police station in neighboring Imo state, police said.
Eight assailants were killed, a local police source told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.
South-eastern Nigeria has seen an upsurge in attacks on security forces in recent weeks, which the authorities attribute to members of the Ipob (Indigenous People of Biafra), a separatist group campaigning for the independence of Biafra. .
In another incident in the same region of southeastern Nigeria, this time in Abia state, students and passengers from a bus were kidnapped by unidentified armed men on a road leading to neighboring state on Wednesday. Imo, the local government said. State University students "
encountered an armed gang who took them to the nearby forest with other as yet unidentified travelers
," said Abia State Information Commissioner John Okiyi Kalu, "
Two of the students managed to escape (...), but the others are still being held,
" he said.
Kidnappings by criminals for ransom are common in Nigeria. In the center-west and north-west of the country, in recent months they have targeted students and schoolchildren by the hundreds.