A prosecution witness on Wednesday told the Federal High Court in Abuja how the deadly June 5, 2022, attack on St Francis Xavier Catholic Church in Owo, Ondo State, left her permanently disabled, costing her both legs and her left eye.
Testifying in the terrorism trial of five men accused of orchestrating the massacre, the witness, identified only as SSD, a nurse and resident of Owo, recounted the terror that unfolded during the Pentecost Sunday service.
Led in evidence by prosecuting counsel, Ayodeji Adedipe, SAN, SSD told Justice Emeka Nwite that she initially mistook the first shots outside the church for celebratory firecrackers until it became clear “something was happening outside.”
“I ran to the altar to lie down. Then the gunshots continued sporadically. I couldn’t raise my head again until I heard a loud sound, which I think is a dynamite … I touched my eyes, everywhere was bloody … I touched my legs, I couldn’t feel anything, only the rags and the dangling part of my shattered leg,” she said.
The witness said she was eventually dragged from the rubble and rushed to the hospital alongside other victims and dead bodies.
Doctors amputated both her legs above the knee, and she lost her left eye, which has since been replaced with a prosthesis.
She spent more than five months in medical care and now relies on a wheelchair.
“I was taken to the hospital alongside other victims and dead bodies. I was receiving treatment in the hospital, and I lost my left eye, so I am now using a prosthesis.
“And I also lost my two legs; my two legs were amputated above the knee. I spent about five months plus in the hospital before I was discharged to go home. Since then, I have been in a wheelchair,” the witness stated.
SSD also told the court that 41 members of the congregation died in the attack, while many others were wounded.
After SSD’s testimony, the fifth prosecution witness, code-named SSE, a civil servant and husband of SSD, took the stand.
He corroborated his wife’s testimony and provided his own account of the brutal assault.
“It was Pentecost Sunday…After the mass, we heard the first gunshot outside the church,” SSE said.
Initially dismissed as a firecracker, the shots grew louder and closer until gunmen surrounded the church and began shooting those trying to flee.
He told the court that when assailants could no longer contain worshippers at the entrance, they hurled explosive devices into crowded areas, creating a deadly mist of smoke, dust and metal fragments.
“They were first shooting those who were about to run out of the church. Noticing that the crowd was too large to move out from the small door that could not even contain them, an explosive mechanism (device) was thrown to the place where people gathered just at the exit door behind where I lay down.
“The whole church was full of dust and smoke. For long, no human being talked,” he said, describing the silence that followed.
SSE said he later searched frantically for his family, finding his wife and initially failing to recognise her beneath the injuries.
He recounted signing for the surgical amputation of his wife’s legs in the hospital.
“My mother sustained little injury. I carried her to the general hospital for prompt attention. At the hospital, I signed for my wife to be amputated. She was traumatically amputated; the two legs were cut.
“We discovered later that one of the eyes was ruptured. As of today, she lives with no legs and one eye,” he told the court.
He also told the court that although the former Ondo State government had promised artificial legs for his wife, the vendor failed to deliver before the government’s tenure ended and the current administration has done nothing to assist.
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