Tension has enveloped residents of the Umu-Ezuboke Umualor community in the Isi-Uzo local government area of Enugu State over an invasion by hoodlums suspected to have emanated from nearby Ebonyi State.
It was gathered that the incident, which happened on Saturday night, left no fewer than four persons hospitalised with multiple gunshot wounds.
Narrating their ordeals on Sunday morning, one of the victims, Mr Methodist Ejiagbo said: “Three months ago, some Abakaliki boys came to my house and told me that they will invade us with war, we are living in the farmlands. They said they would kill me and take over my house and land. One of them, Friday Ukeh said he would take over my house that it is the most beautiful house around.
“So, yesterday while coming back to my house I saw two Hilux vans with a Sienna vehicle. The occupants wore clothes like police uniforms. They collected phones and machetes from our people returning from the farm but let the young go as one of them said the boy was not from Umu-Ezuboke.
“Then at night, at about 11pm they came in and started shooting everybody; they shot me and I held them and they started shooting everybody, using cutlass on some people, even clubs they used to break some people’s hands.
“We were surprised. Three days ago they came with a talisman with a bag that looked like garri sack, we didn’t know it was a bullet sack. They stationed the medicine man at Nwankwo and I informed our people but they did not go.
“They came with two Hilux and one Sienna. We didn’t go to their place, we are Umualor and they are Amankanu people. One of them, Samuel is an Abakaliki man who lived in Umualor, they now said that our land is Amankanu. It’s a combination of Amankanu and Abakaliki people.
“One of them, Samuel Idenyi, is from Amankanu. Samuel Ede who is from Abakaliki was the one that collected phones from our people, that was in the evening, at night they now came in full force attacked and started shooting at us.
“The man who shot me was known as Tubor, an Abakaliki man. I know all of them; the other ones are Friday Ukeh, and Mark Anyigor, the other one is called Stubborn. There was Roma Ekpete’s son, and the other one was Oshimo’s son, they are the ones I saw, they were over 20 in number.”
The Enugu Police Public Relations Officer, Daniel Ndukwe was yet to react to an inquiry as of the time of filing this report.
