Residents desert Imo community as gunmen kill two policemen at checkpoint

It was a tragic day for residents of Ngor Okpala Local Government Area of Imo State as gunmen once again ambushed and killed two police officers on Saturday.

This is coming barely one month after the gunmen ambushed and killed five policemen and a couple at the same Okpala junction located on the Owerri-Aba Road.

In the same Ngor Okpala LGA of the state, five officers of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps were attacked and slain in March.

Due to the tragedy that occurred on Saturday, many locals have deserted their homes and places of business.

Many claimed that seven officers were shot dead during the incident, even though the state’s police department had only acknowledged the deaths of two officers.

According to information obtained by TRACKNEWS , the gunmen initially opened fire on the policemen, killing two of them and one was injured this morning at a checkpoint along Aba Road in Okpala.

When contacted, the police spokesman for the command, Henry Okoye, said only two policemen “paid the supreme prize.”

He told our correspondent in a telephone conversation that the gunmen were engaged in a gun duel by “the vigilant policemen on duty.”

He added that the police had found the blood-stained car that the gunmen abandoned while traveling in one of their operating vehicles.

Okoye claimed the command’s operatives had seized control of the area to inspire confidence in the local populace and to locate the suspects