The Nigeria Army Air Strike on the hunt for Boko Haram hideout has mistakenly cast a bomb on civilians and aid workers at a refugee camp for the internally displaced persons, IDPs in Rann, Borno State, on Tuesday, January 17.
According to reports by MSF, also known as Doctors Without Borders, which has teams in the area, at least 52 people were killed and about 120 people were severely injured. They deemed the attack thoroughly unacceptable and demand that safety of civilians must be respected.
While the military which has admitted the error attack is yet to provide its dead toll, the Theatre Commander of Nigerian forces in Borno, Lucky Irabor, a major general, confirmed that he authorised the bombing. His statement explained how the error attack occurred and he said,
"This morning today, we received reports about gathering of Boko Haram terrorists somewhere in Kala Balge Local Government area of Borno State. We got a coordinate and I directed that the air should go to address the problem.
"Unfortunately the strike was conducted but it turned out that the locals somewhere in Rann were affected.
"We are yet to get the details of the casualties. But we have some civilians that have been killed, others are wounded and we also have two of our soldiers that were also wounded. Among some that are wounded are local staffs of the Medicine Sans Frontiers as well as ICRC."The International Committee of the Red Cross, ICRC said six Nigerian Red Cross members were among those killed while 13 others were injured.
President Muhammadu Buhari has expressing his regret and sympathy for victims of the incident, in a statement via his Twitter account captioned
“I received with regret news that the Air Force, working to mop up Boko Haram insurgents, accidentally bombed community in Ran, Borno State."
It was recalled that such error bombing had occurred in the past, precisely in March 2014 where an air force jet killed five and wounded several others when it hit Kayamla village in the Konduga area of northeast Nigeria. Soldiers mistook the village for a Boko Haram camp in the night raid.
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