Gunmen terrorising Imo state have struck once again ambushing and killing two police officers in Ngor Okpala Local Government Area on Saturday
This is coming barely one month after the gunmen ambushed and killed five policemen and a couple at the same Okpala junction located on the Owerri-Aba Road.
In the same Ngor Okpala LGA of the state, five officers of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps were attacked and slain in March.
Due to the perennial attacks and wanton killings many locals fled their homes and places of business on Saturday.
Many claimed that seven officers were shot dead during the incident, even though the state’s police department had only acknowledged the deaths of two officers.
According to the police, the gunmen initially opened fire on the policemen, killing two of them and one was injured this morning at a checkpoint along Aba Road in Okpala.
The police spokesman for the command, Henry Okoye, said only two policemen “paid the supreme prize.”
He said gunmen were engaged in a gun duel by “the vigilant policemen on duty.”
He added that the police had found the blood-stained car that the gunmen abandoned while traveling in one of their operating vehicles.
Okoye claimed the command’s operatives had seized control of the area to inspire confidence in the local populace and to locate the suspects.