Emeka Umeagbalasi, a criminologist and director of Intersociety has described the June 28 and 29th killing of youths in Ogbaru as genocide.
Soldiers drawn from Ogbaru Naval Base and Onitsha 302 Artillery Regiment had on the night of June 28 laid siege on Ossomala, Umunankwo and Obeagwa communities of Ogbaru, killing nọ less than 18 persons. Local sources said the number of people killed, mostly the youths were more than 50.
The soldiers were said to have been looking for unknown gunmen operating in the area.
Umeagbalasi said that there was no doubt that Ogbaru is one of the Anambra Council areas presently under the grip of syndicated criminal entities engaging in several nefarious activities including abductions, killings, armed robberies and ransom demands as well as counterfeiting ESN trademarked modes of operation by attacking security operatives and government facilities.
He said soldiers broke doors of homes in the villages, brought out people and shot them.
“Latest findings by Intersociety showed that the criminal entities are camped inside big river/swamp Forest of Obene-Ochuche/Umuzu/Okija divided by Ulasi River. The area covers Ogbaru Communities of Atani, Amiyi, Umuzu, Ochuche, Akiri-Ozuzu, Osamari, Umunankwo and Ogwuanaocha
“Information available to Intersociety also has it that they have camps at different forests in Umunankwo and Ogwuanaocha.
“Consequently on the night of Tuesday, 28 June 2022, over twenty trucks of soldiers, arms and ammunition were mobilized and the areas were invaded in an aimless war grade operation and instead of the military personnel including Naval and Army Personnel from Ogbaru Naval Base and Onitsha 302 Artillery Regiment going into the affected Forest camps, they let loose on innocent locals, shooting them at close range including foreheads, chests, manhood and other terminal regions.
“Several or dozens were killed in the end as you might have seen in the videos and pictures of the aftermath of the invasion.
“The rampaging military personnel also went into villages and broke homes at late night, forcing scores to be killed and other defenseless natives of the affected communities to escape through River Niger and others.”
“Our findings further showed that the slain could not have been armed members of the criminal entities because judging from the attached pictures and videos, nobody, not even relatives or friends of the slain would have dared nearing the corpses and wailing or screaming profusely or checking them if they are to be forest based members of the criminal entities or “Unknown Gunmen” especially the street criminal entities or counterfeiters.
“The pictures and videos also circumstantially indicated that the slain were members of defenseless locals and have nothing to do with “Unknown Gunmen” who the Nigerian security forces have severally and publicly acknowledged to bear charms preventing bullet penetration.
“Also no armed person could have been shot at such close range and killed easily that way at his terminal region without dodging and stiff defensive resistance”.
