03/31/2003
IMO State gubernatorial candidate of National Democractic Party (NDP) Chief Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba, has condemned what he called "the mindless massacre of our citizens at Umuloto Okigwe, by men of the Nigeria Police ", even as the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) put the figure of the dead at 50. Speaking exclusively to Vanguard in Owerri at the weekend, Nwajiuba said that "from the look of things, the police overreacted and I do not see the killing and maiming of our citizens as the best way to handle an assemblage of people." He said that police did not report that it lost any of its personnel, it would be safe to say that they were simply firing at a crowd of unarmed persons.03/31/2003
Lagos - At least seven members of a group campaigning for an independent Biafra were killed on Saturday in southeast Nigeria during a confrontation with the police, police and witnesses said. More than 5,000 members of the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) were travelling in a convoy of about 130 cars and buses to a rally when they were confronted by heavily armed police at Umololo village in Imo State. "There was an argument and then a fight and the police shot dead seven people," Ray Onyeukwu, who said he witnessed the incident, told IRIN.
