By Scroll reporter, Lagos Nigeria.
Aid workers, soldiers and displaced persons were among over 100 persons killed in error by the Nigerian Airfore fighter jet. The jet fighter was supposed to go to Kala- Balge where Boko Haram were reported to have shifted base to but ended up in Rann where aid workers were distributing food to Internally Displaced Persons. Many of those who collected food did not stay alive to eat it.
Major General Lucky Irabor the theatre Commander of Operation Lafiya Dole who leads the military operation against the militants, said the Airforce were given information about Boko Haram terrorists in the area. He therefore directed that the air component of the operation should go and address the problem. ” Unfortunately, the strike was conducted but it turned out that the local, somewhere in Rann were affected.
The Nigerian Airforce said investigation had begun into the accidental bombing. The incident occured barely two days after a bomb explosion in Maiduguri which killed a professor and five students.
A security expert Felix Idowu told Scroll Report that “The incidents are very disturbing and are the Airforce men who went on the mission amateurs? How could they have mistaken one place for another. This is very sad. It shows the level of mediocrity in this country.” Ngozi Phillip a nurse said “It is pathetic that those who went to render service to humanity to displaced persons died doing good. The jet fighter was to hasty to detonate bombs.”
