RANN, NIGERIA — The Nigerian Air Force killed at least 52 civilians and aid workers, and injured 120 more in an airstrike that was supposed to be targeting Boko Haram on Tuesday.
The incident took place at a refugee camp located in the city of Rann, in the far north of Borno state of Nigeria at about 9 a.m. Humanitarian groups Doctors Without Borders and International Committee of the Red Cross were operating at the camp when it was bombed.
“In recent weeks Boko Haram has moved base to Kala from Sambisa Forest and obviously a military jet mistook Rann for Kala and bombarded, killing many civilians," Rann resident Abba Abiso told AFP. The Nigerian army said the air force had been given coordinates of the Kala Balge area, a district including Rann, and a fighter jet had apparently targeted Rann instead of nearby Kala city.
Doctors Without Borders said it had counted 52 dead and 120 wounded. The International Committee of the Red Cross said 6 Nigerian Red Cross members were killed and 13 were wounded.
The Nigerian president said in a statement that the airstrike was a “regrettable operational mistake.” The army was unable to provide an official death toll, but one senior commander described the casualties from the attack as “huge,” AFP reported.
