Trial Continues as Owo Attack Survivors Give Graphic Accounts in Abuja Court

• Survivors of the 2022 Owo church attack told a Federal High Court how gunmen and explosives killed worshippers, leaving a mother with amputated legs and one eye. The trial of five accused terrorists continues.

A grieving couple on Wednesday told the Federal High Court in Abuja how they survived the June 5, 2022, terror attack on St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church in Owo, Ondo State, describing scenes of horror as gunmen and explosives tore through the church.

The couple testified in the ongoing trial of five men accused of carrying out the attack: Idris Abdulmalik Omeiza (25), Al Qasim Idris (20), Jamiu Abdulmalik (26), Abdulhaleem Idris (25), and Momoh Otuho Abubakar (47). The case is being prosecuted by the Department of State Services (DSS).

Testifying as PW5, the husband, identified as SSE, told the court he attended mass with his mother, wife, and three children. He said the attack began just after the final blessing.

“The congregation gathered in the church… After the mass, the priest now gave the final blessing… It was then that we heard the first gunshot outside the church,” he said.

At first, worshippers thought it was a festive banger, but the gunshots continued. A church warden ordered everyone to lie down and locked the entrance, but the attackers fired through the windows before forcing their way inside.

“They were first shooting those who wanted to run out of the church… an explosive device was thrown at the place where people gathered behind the exit door, where I lay down,” SSE said.

He said the explosives detonated repeatedly, filling the church with smoke and dust. When silence returned and outsiders shouted that the attackers had fled, he stepped out to search for his family.

“My lord, you can imagine the feeling when I had to be searching and turning the corpses of young people on the floor to see if any of them was my son,” he told the court.

SSE later realised that a badly injured woman he had pitied inside the church was his wife.

“I discovered that it was the woman that I passed by in the church, which I did not recognise, but was pitying, that turned out to be my wife,” he said.

He said his wife was rushed to the Federal Medical Centre in Owo, where doctors amputated both her legs.

“At the hospital, I signed for my wife to be amputated… And we discovered later that one of the eyes was ruptured. As of today, she lives with no legs and one eye,” he said.

Earlier, the wife, SSD, testified as PW4. A nurse by profession, she said she ran to the altar to hide as gunshots rang out.

“I was there praying in my heart that God would save my family,” she said.

She described hearing a loud blast believed to be dynamite before losing consciousness.

“Then, I touched my eyes; everywhere was bloody. I touched my leg, and I could not feel anything… only what felt like rags and the dangling, shattered part of my leg,” she said.

SSD told the court she lost her left eye and both legs and spent over five months in hospital.

“I also lost my two legs. The two legs were amputated above the knees… Since then, I have been in a wheelchair,” she said.

At the prosecution’s request, the trial judge, Justice Emeka Nwite, allowed SSD to be wheeled before the court to show her amputated legs and damaged eye.

Under cross-examination, both witnesses said the attackers used guns and dynamite. SSE said he saw three attackers inside the church and one outside, though he could not clearly see their faces.

Justice Nwite adjourned further hearing to February 10 and 11.