The Catholic Archdiocese of Owerri (Nigeria) regretted the shooting that occurred in a local parish on New Year’s Eve, which left one young man dead and another injured. The suspect, according to local media, would be a priest.
“The Catholic Archdiocese of Owerri regrets the shooting that occurred on New Year’s Eve on the perimeter of St. Columba Catholic Church in Amaimo, which resulted in the death of a young man and another being injured”says a note signed by Archbishop Lucius Iwejuru Ugorji, dated January 2 and published on Facebook on the 3rd.
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“The Archdiocese of Owerri offers its condolences to the bereaved family and prays for the eternal rest of the deceased and the speedy recovery of the injured,” continues the text of this ecclesiastical jurisdiction located in the state of Imo, in the southeast of Nigeria.
The statement concludes by stating that “in the meantime, the police are investigating the incident and the circumstances surrounding it. Therefore, we ask for calm in the parish of St. Columba in Amaimo.”
According to the Vatican agency Fideswhich quotes local media, on January 2, the Imo State police arrested the parish priest of the church, Fr. Joseph Enyinaya, as a suspect in the shooting.
Citing an unidentified witness, Fides reports that, on December 31, the priest tried to disperse, with shots in the air, the young people who were lighting fireworks on the perimeter of the church.
Father Enyinaya would have lost control of the weapon and ended up hitting the two young people affected.
According Premium Times NigeriaImo police spokesperson Henry Okoye explained that “a detailed investigation has been launched to ascertain the facts surrounding the incident” and that the priest “is in our custody.”
Regarding the priest, Okoye said he did not know “if the act was intentional. “I don’t think so, but we are still investigating.”
Walter Sánchez Silva
I have been a husband since 2008. My wife and I have three children here and one who went to heaven in 2023, before he was born. Since I joined ACI Prensa in 2005, I have had the opportunity to cover various events of the Catholic Church. Among them, the World Youth Days in Cologne, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro and the apostolic trips of Pope Benedict XVI to Mexico and of Pope Francis to South Korea. I have been sent to the Vatican to cover the Family synods, in 2015; of the Amazon, in 2019 and that of Synodality, in 2023. I closely follow the situation of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, which suffers persecution from the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega, as well as current ecclesiastical events in the region.