Gunmen attacked two police checkpoints in Nsukka, Nsukka Local Government Area of Enugu State, killed one officer and set a patrol vehicle ablaze.
It was gathered that the attack occurred in the early hours of Friday morning, June 17.
The officer was killed at Umanu junction in Nsukka while a police vehicle was torched along Ibeagwa-Ani road.
An eyewitness told NAN that residents heard sporadic gunshots around 6:20 am. Afterward, they rushed to the junction and found the lifeless policeman on the ground.
“I quickly rushed to my doors to ensure that all of them were well locked. I switched off all electric lights in my house and told my wife and children to keep quiet because I thought it was armed robbers,” he said.
He said after the gunshots stopped, he joined people rushing to the junction and found the lifeless body of the policeman on the ground.
“They said the policeman was killed during a gun duel between the police team on the checkpoint and the gunmen,” he said
A trader, who was a witness at the Ibeagwa-Ani Road incident where police van was set ablaze said that he was in a commercial bus going to Nkwo Ibeagwa-Ani Market when they sighted police van on fire with five armed men who masked their faces watching the vehicle.
“Our driver quickly reversed and drove to a safer distance where we watched until the gunmen zoomed off shooting sporadically. When we reached the scene of the incident the van had already burnt to ashes, we stopped like other road users for some minutes and continued our journey,” he said.
Spokesperson of the State Police Command, Daniel Ndukwe, has confirmed the incident.
“There was an attack on operatives in Nsukka today but the details are still sketchy”, he said.
