The Police in Ebonyi state this morning foiled an attempted jailbreak as Abakaliki prison inmates staged a riot inside the prison.
As at press time, Police have cordoned off all roads leading to the Abakaliki prisons.
Gunshots could be heard intermittently as Police try to recover a firearm allegedlly taken from one of the prison officers. The inmates were protesting poor treatment especially inadequate feeding.
Unconfirmed reports said that some loss of lives have been recorded in the incident.
Another source said some of the inmates capitalised on the riot to stage a jailbreak and had already succeeded in creating an opening on the wall before anti-riot policemen arrived and heavily tear gassed them into submission.
The prison is located beside the police headquarters leading to prompt intervention from the police.
Already the Commander of Military cantonment and the commissioner of Police have visited the area and are directing the operations to restore sanity to the prison.
The Police spokesman George Okafor when contacted said the command was still working hard to resolve the crisis. He, however, refused to confirm if anybody is dead or not.
“There was an attempted jailbreak and the prisons called in the police. We cordoned off the area and restored nomalcy to the area”
“We will brief you later on the issue once everything have been sorted out”.