100 refugees, aid workers killed in Nigeria air strike

The International Committee for the Red Cross said six workers with the Nigerian Red Cross were among the dead and 13 were wounded. “They were part of a team that had brought in desperately needed food for over 25,000 displaced persons,” spokesman Jason Straziuso said in a statement.

Two soldiers were also wounded, as well as Nigerians working for Doctors Without Borders, Maj. Gen. Irabor said.

The general, who is the theater commander for counterinsurgency operations in northeast Nigeria, said he ordered the mission based on information that Boko Haram insurgents were gathering in the area, along with geographic coordinates.

It was too early to say if a tactical error was made, he said, adding that the bombing would be investigated.

Doctors Without Borders spokesman Etienne l’Hermitte in Geneva urged authorities to facilitate cross-border land and air evacuations.

“Our medical and surgical teams in Cameroon and Chad are ready to treat wounded patients. We are in close contact with our teams, who are in shock following the event,” he said in a statement.

Villagers previously reported civilian casualties in airstrikes on Boko Haram positions in northeastern Nigeria.

Some of the schoolgirls kidnapped by the insurgents in 2014 and freed last year have said three of their classmates were killed by government bombardments, according to the freed girls’ parents. Of the nearly 300 schoolgirls who were abducted, 196 remain missing.

The bombings have helped drive Boko Haram out of many towns and villages and, according to President Buhari, the insurgents’ last stronghold in the Sambisa Forest last month.

Boko Haram’s 7-year-old Islamic uprising has killed more than 20,000 people and forced 2.6 million from their homes.

DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS A man carries an injured child Tuesday after a government air strike hit a camp for displaced people in Rann, Nigeria.