IPOB declares 21-day mourning for slain members

Proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra ( IPOB ) says it has declared 21-day mourning for its members killed during the military invasion of the home of her leader, Nnamdi Kanu at Afara Ukwu, Umuahia, Abia State.

The separatist group also claimed that it has discovered more corpses of her slain members in a bush at Umuahia, the State Capital, near the home of its leader, Nnamdi Kanu.

According to the group it is burying her over 28 members killed during the Military invasion with 11 of such bodies already interred.

A senior member of the group, Mark Eze Ofuonye while disclosing how some of their members were shot dead by the invading soldiers, and some of the corpses recently found in a bush near the home of the IPOB leader said, “Some of our member numbering over 28 were murdered in cold blood by the military during the invasion of our leader’s home at Afara Ukwu.”

“The soldiers were doing a sorts of mob up, when they killed, they carried away to conceal their horrendous act but it was not possible.

“So, they filed up their trucks with our members corpses. The corpses we retrieved which are the ones we are burying presently are those the soldiers could not carry. It was kind of a sting operation; they just came out with the intention of killing everything that lives there (Nnamdi Kanu’s home). The people they met were not armed still they opened fire that even people standing by and those passing through the area were caught in the cross fire.”

Ofuonye said the corpses they have been  burying in recent times were those they reportedly retrieved from inside the bush which they alleged soldiers could not see to carry away after killing them.

According to him, “The corpses we are burying now were found inside the bush, they were shot by soldiers and they ran into the bush with bullet wounds thinking that they could receive help there but no help came their way and they died inside the bush. Some of the dead bodies were discovered last week inside the bush at the back of Nnamdi Kanu’s house. The 28 were those ones that were killed within the axis of the house of our leader. But the total number killed within this range is 305 persons.”

The IPOB chieftain who said there was no need for the operation by the Nigerian army as members of the group do not carry arms neither were they violent, added that the leadership of the pro Biafra group declared the 21 day mourning for their killed members

Disclosing that those killed were from the Eastern heartland, Ofuonye said what the group was busy doing now is burying the dead, treating the injured and taking care of the imprisoned ones.

“We lost very vibrant and lovely youths who were just peacefully asking for what is their right, but the Nigerian government chose to use brute force on them. Some of our members who were forced to drink poisoned water, some of them are defecating blood today and we are also treating them. About 76 of our members are dumped in Aba prisons under the most inhuman condition and many of them are ill.

“A lot of things are being done against our members, but the most beautiful thing about all these things is that were are getting strength from them; the spirit has risen, the enthusiasm has come because when you look back and see you’ve lost a lovely one, a colleague, going back becomes a very big problem you can’t go so that it will not look as a betrayal. As I speak, we are establishing more zones and new members are coming in, we are winning the war of battle of hearts and minds,”he assured.

He said the 21 days of mourning which began on October 26 would be used to bury all their members who were killed during the invasion and that they are doing that in piecemeal.

He added that within this period, they’ve been able to bury 11 of their members at their various homes within the Aba region and that they will continue until all of them were buried.

“Because in any struggle, people die, but the only painful aspect of it is probably we lost young boys, youths who had bright future. In the civilized world, you don’t touch people like that, no matter what they did, at worse you take them to court; but we have drawn strength from their death and we are not going back.”

He advised the United Nations to send its representatives to the home of their leader at Afara Ukwu to be able to see how soldiers invaded the house of a core civilian with heavy armoury and none of the soldiers sustained any scratch which he said was an indication despite the propaganda mounted by the Nigerian army, the IPOB members were not armed.

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