St. Peters Anglican Church, Aguleri, Anambra-East Local Government Area of Anambra State, was weekend invaded by unknown persons who attacked a church catechist, the priest and church gardener, inflicting machete cuts on them.

A source who spoke toNews Expresssaid that the church catechist, Mr. Christopher Chukwu, came out around midnight to answer the call of nature when he sighted strange flashlights in the church premises and moved towards the direction of the light to find out who it was.

The source said that the hoodlums pounced on the catechist as soon as he got close to them, using machetes and other weapons on him. The catechist’s cry for help attracted the resident priest, Rev. Akachukwu Ikedilo, and the gardener, Mathew Nwude, both of whom suffered the same fate while trying to rescue the catechist from the marauders.

Narrating his ordeal to journalists, the church priest said that it was the church catechist and the gardener who encountered the hoodlums and that from what he was told, the attackers cut the catechist with an axe and in their effort to escape, they inflicted more injuries on him and the gardener.

Ikedilo said: “When I came down to ascertain what happened, the criminals had fled and left the church teacher and the gardener in a pool of their blood.”

The President-General of Aguleri Community Assembly, Chief Barr. Hipo Onwuegbuke, who regretted the sad event, recalled that he got a distress call at about 3:45 a.m. from a relative.

He said: “I immediately alerted the police and local vigilantes, who stormed the church premises just in time but unfortunately the miscreants, had escaped through Umueri, a neighbouring community.

“The police and local vigilante operatives saw the ladder with which the hoodlums wanted to use to climb into the residence of the priest.”

Onwuegbuke insisted that the horrible incident was more than just robbery, insisting adding that a similar incident had recently been foiled by local vigilance group.

The Anambra State Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), SP Haruna Mohammed, in his reaction said that the invaders were on a mission to rob.