900 escape in Nigerian jailbreak
Almost half in custody; Islamic rebels blamed
ABUJA, Nigeria — Nearly 900 inmates escaped in a jailbreak in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital city, officials said Wednesday, blaming the attack on Islamic extremist rebels.
At least 443 of the 879 escapees are still missing, Umar Abubakar, a spokesman for the Nigerian Correctional Service said, while hundreds of others have either been recaptured or turned themselves in at police stations.
Officials will “track all fleeing inmates and return them to custody,” Abubakar said.
Later Wednesday, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari visited the prison where senior officials showed him around the facility. He then tweeted he was “saddened” by the attack and “disappointed” with Nigeria’s intelligence system.
“How can terrorists organize, have weapons, attack a security installation and get away with it?” Buhari asked.
The “very determined” rebels attacked the Kuje maximum prison in Abuja on Tuesday night with “very high-grade explosives,” killing one guard on duty, according to Shuaib Belgore, permanent secretary of Nigeria’s Ministry of Interior.
Explosions and gunfire were heard at about 10 p.m. in the Kuje area when the attackers arrived and forced their way into the prison through a hole created by the blasts.
The Islamic extremist rebels who attacked the prison have waged an insurgency in the country’s northeast for over a decade. Their attack on the detention facility freed many of their members who are inmates, prison officials said.
“We understand they are Boko Haram. They came specifically for their co-conspirators,” said Belgore.
The Kuje maximum security prison had nearly 1,000 inmates including 64 suspects of the Boko Haram extremist group all of whom have escaped, said Maj. Gen. Bashir Salihi Magashi, Nigeria’s Minister of Defense.
He told reporters that security officials on the ground did “their best” to prevent the jailbreak. “We are trying to see what we can do to ensure that all escapees are brought back,” he said.
The Abuja jailbreak occurred around the same time that gunmen launched a daring attack on an advance security convoy preparing for the visit of Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari in the northwest Katsina state.