Death toll rises to 20 in Ebonyi prison break

Only six inmates died-CG

The Controller General of the Nigerian Prisons Service Jafaru Ahmed yesterday said that only six inmates were killed while 16 were critically injured and were receiving treatment at the Federal Teaching Hospital Abakaliki in Thursday’s failed jailbreak.

But a source from the hospital said that most of the inmates receiving treatment may not have survived which raised the death toll to 20.

He added that the three officials that sustained minor injuries have been treated and discharged.

But Jafaru Ahmed during a visit to Governor Umai after visiting the prisons said only six inmates died during the attempted jailbreak.

The Guardian reliably gathered that the male inmates last night reportedly raped their female mates.

The attempted jailbreak forced the Controller General to visit the prisons, where he met with the inmates and the officials.

Ahmed after meeting with the governor told reporters that six inmates died during the attempted jailbreak while 10 of them are receiving treatment at the Federal Teaching Hospital Abakaliki.

According to him, three officials of the prisons were treated and discharged.

State Comptroller of Prisons, Mrs. Emilia Oputa had told journalists that the inmates were seeking for freedom.

She noted that the officials were on their routine search of the inmates in the two cells at the federal prisons to check for harmful objects in their midst when inmates in one of the cells refused to be searched which trigger of violence by the inmates.