Gunmen attack Nigerian prison, leading to escape of 1,800 inmates in Owerri

More than 1,800 inmates escaped from a Nigerian prison in the south-eastern city of Owerri after an attack by gunmen carrying rocket-propelled grenades, machine guns, explosives and rifles, the prisons authority said.

Nigerian police said it believed a banned separatist group, the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), was behind the attack, but a spokesman for the group denied involvement.

The secessionist movement in the south-east is one of several serious security challenges facing…