New York Daily News

Bloodbath at church

- Stephen Rex Brown With News Wire Services

A 27-YEAR-OLD MAN was seriously injured when he got caught between a subway platform and a moving train in the Union Square station Sunday night.

The victim fell between the platform and an uptown 4 train just before 7:20 p.m., officials said.

“I saw someone get dragged,” said witness Alexis McEvoy. “(I) saw the person half under the train and bleeding.”

The conductor stopped the train when he realized what was happening. Police used a tourniquet on the victim’s left leg, which was bleeding badly, cops said.

Medics rushed the man, who was conscious and alert, to Bellevue Hospital with serious injuries. Cops said he suffered compound fractures to both legs. GUNMEN stormed a church in Nigeria Sunday and killed 11 worshipers — even though the man they came to kill wasn’t there, officials said.

Authoritie­s in the town of Ozubulu, in the southeaste­rn part of the country, said the violence at St. Philip Catholic Church, which also wounded 18, may have been linked to a drug traffickin­g feud between two men.

“The gunmen came thinking that their target was in the church but incidental­ly he was not,” said Garba Umar, head of police in Anambra state.

No arrests had made.

Local rights activist Emeka Umeagbalas­i told Agence France-Presse the gunmen had gone to kill the son of a local chief but didn’t find him at home. They became angry upon realizing he wasn’t at church, either, he said.

They opened “fire on parishione­rs and shot indiscrimi­nately,” he said, adding that the father of the intended target was shot and wounded.

One parishione­r, Uche Nonoso, disputed the death toll, saying over 15 were killed in the attack that began around 6 a.m. Questions also lingered about the number of attackers.

Witness Chukwuma Emeka said he had just stepped out of the church to stretch his legs “when I heard gunshots and screaming and people running inside.”

“When the chaos subsided I went inside,” he added. “I saw my fellow church members dead in a pool of their own blood and many others were screaming in pain.”

No one immediatel­y claimed responsibi­lity for the attack. Authoritie­s said they did not believe Boko Haram jihadists were behind the shooting. been

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