Armed Group Raids Prison in Nigeria, Hundreds of Detainees Escape

jpnn.com, ABIDJAN - An armed group attacked a jail in Oyo State, Nigeria, late Friday (22/10) and forcibly released 800 prisoners, the prison service said Saturday (23/10).

It was the third such major attack this year in Nigeria.

In a statement, the prison said the heavily armed group exchanged gunfire with prison security officers.

The group, it said, gained entry to the prison yard by blasting the walls with dynamite.

A total of 575 detainees, all of whom were awaiting trial, were missing, and another 262 who escaped had since been arrested again, the prison service said.

The prison had only 65 convicts. They did not escape.

"While all the awaiting trial detainees were forced out of custody, the cells housing the convicts and the female inmates were not vandalised," the prison service said.

Nigeria is struggling with security problems across its vast territory, including a spate of abductions of students for ransom by criminal gangs in the northwest and an Islamist insurgency in the northeast.