The council, in a statement issued by its national spokesman, Ebilade Ekerefe, on Friday, in Yenagoa, condemned the killing and described the act as dastardly and barbaric.
The PUNCH had earlier reported that three persons were shot dead in the local government following a clash between two rival cult groups.
Sources in the community attributed the violence to the supremacy tussle between the two groups.
The victims included a lady, her boyfriend, who is said to be an aide to the community’s youth president, Ayerite Moses, and one other person.
The IYC in their statement said it was disturbing that the incident occurred after the recent peace accord signed by the stakeholders of the area.
It sent its condolences to the families of the victims and the people of Opu-Nembe and appealed to the youths of the community not to launch a reprisal.
The apex Ijaw youth organisation also called on the security agencies to work with the community people to fish out the perpetrators of the violence and prosecute them.
The IYC said, “The killing is condemnable and shocking that after signing a peace accord by key actors in the community, unidentified gunmen unleashed unprovoked violence which led to the deaths of three promising youths of the community.
“We use this medium to commiserate with the Opu-Nembe people and, most especially, the families who lost loved ones during the unfortunate Wednesday’s violent attack.
“This is an act of barbarism that should be condemned by every progressive thinking mind as incidents of this nature have the capacity to distort the development trajectory of a people.
“We appeal to the youths of Opu-Nembe to resist the temptation of carrying out reprisal attacks (sic) while we call on relevant security agencies to work with the community stakeholders to gather credible intelligence and bring the perpetrators of this dastardly act to justice.”
