(Reuters) — Nigeria’s air force killed 50 people and injured 120 in an air strike on a camp for displaced persons in the northeast of the country on Tuesday (January 17), Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said.
The military said the strike had targeted Boko Haram.
MSF said the strike occurred in Rann in Borno state, the epicentre of the jihadist group’s seven-year-old bid to create an Islamic caliphate. Regional military commander General Lucky Irabor located it at Kala Balge, a district including Rann.
MSF released photographs and videos showing wounded sheltering under a tent. Several have blood stains on their clothes. A child is seen with heavy burns.
Speaking in Geneva, Medecins Sans Frontieres’ Head of Emergency Programs Hugues Robert said the incident took place in a densely populated area.
“Today at 12.20 there was aerial bombardment in Rann which took place in a very densely populated area. It killed 50 people,” Robert said.
“Rann is a very volatile area. Rann city has been under the control of the army since several months and in the city of Rann there is also a number of people who have fled the conflict, who are displaced, who have been finding shelter there,” he added.
A statement issued by the presidency said the air strike was a “regrettable operational mistake” that happened during the “final phase of mopping up insurgents in the northeast”.
The strike came amid an offensive against Boko Haram by Nigeria’s military over the last few weeks.
Boko Haram has stepped up attacks in the last few weeks as the end of the rainy season has enabled its fighters to move more easily in the bush.
Robert said the situation on the ground could not be worse.
“We are speaking about a location that was very hard to reach, where people for more than 6 month could not access basic assistance, where the population was really in a very bad situation with extremely severe acute malnutrition on spot, and now on top of that now we have this mass casualties, with this massive I mean casualties due to a direct bombing of a highly populated are so it is really like the worst you can imagine in terms of situation,” he said.
Charlotte Morris, a spokeswoman for MSF, said “MSF teams in Cameroon and Chad were ready to treat wounded patients”, adding the teams were “in shock”.
A spokeswoman for ICRC said six Nigerian Red Cross members were killed and 13 were wounded.
In a photo released by MSF, the bodies of three dead persons lie under the sun.
The insurgency has killed more than 15,000 people and forced two million to flee their homes, many of whom have moved to camps because it has been too dangerous to return home.