Forty persons have been confirmed dead from the guresome attack at the St Francis Catholic Church in Owo town, Ondo State with 26 survivors discharged from hospitals, days after the incident.
Governor Rotimi Akeredolu of Ondo State made the disclosure when he hosted a team of Catholic Bishops from the South-West, led by Most Reverend Leke Abegunrin, on Wednesday.
It will be recalled that the attack happened on Sunday, 5th June 2022; which has affected so many lives in Ondo State.
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A statement issued by the governor’s Chief Press Secretary Richard Olatunde quoted Akeredolu as saying that;
The medical team led by the Commissioner for Health has sent figure to us, and it is slightly different. What I put out during my address on the broadcast to the State was wrong and we must accept it.
The figure I have now shows that 127 persons were involved and that the number of death now is 40. On admission receiving treatment, we have 61. Twenty-six have been discharged. Those are the figures we have now from the Commissioner for Health. So, the government is not hiding anything.
The casualty figures as of Tuesday midnight showed that at “St. Louis Hospital, Owo, 39 people were involved and 13 deaths (confirmed)”.
Also, at the Federal Medical Centre, Owo, “a total number of persons involved is 84; and number of corpses in the FMC mortuary is 25; female, 17, and eight males.”
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Two persons were also said to have died in private hospitals, taking the total number of deaths to 40.
Akeredolu said:
What we witnessed in Owo on that Sunday, I have been looking for a word to describe it but I’m not too sure I can find one because it is indescribable. There is no word to describe it. If you say horrific, dastardly, horrendous, all those ones are common words and we use them for many things.
But I have been looking for a better word to use because we have witnessed barbaric elements, animals in human skin. If you are human, you would not do what they have done. Maybe there are areas where they will do such a thing and they are not worried. But here, we are worried because it is not something we are used to. Human life means a lot to us.
He also noted in the statement:
That is why one is moved. We will have a Memorial Park here where those who died in the attack will be buried. My Bishop sir, we will find a good place as a Memorial Park. It will also be my suggestion that even if there are people who have retrieved their family or members of their family, we must still have a symbolic grave there for them. And it will be there forever, it is not something we can forget and we should never forget it.
