IDP Camp Bombing: We’re yet to ascertain death toll
IDPs’ camp. PHOTO: hrw.org
The Borno State Commissioner for Health, Dr. Haruna Mshelia, has informed that Medicine Sans Frontiers (MSF), Committee of the Red Cross and Red Crescent (ICRC) and United Nations (UN) humanitarian agencies are still evacuating more victims of Rann air strikes to Maiduguri for treatments.
Mshelia spoke yesterday in Maiduguri during an interactive session with journalists on death tolls and casualty figures in three hospitals in the state capital. He said the 54 hospitalised victims were in stable conditions, with medical experts from the state, humanitarian partners and the military attending to their emergency health needs.
“It is still too early to give you an accurate death toll and casualty figures of Tuesday’s Rann accidental air strikes on an Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camp. As I speak to you, evacuation of survivors was still ongoing using four helicopters that were provided by the United Nations and Nigerian Air Force (NAF).”
He said more bodies are still being recovered from the bombed IDPs camp, 24 hours after it was mistakenly hit by the NAF fighter jet, adding that Governor Kashim Shettima has also deployed his deputy, Alhaji Usman Mamman Durkw, Mamman Sheriff; representing Kala/Balge/Bama/Dikwa/Ngala Federal Constituency and State Assembly members among other officials to scene of the incident at the Nigerien
border town of Rann.
Dr. Mshelia informed that, “Of the 54 victims, 32 patients are receiving treatment at the State Specialists Hospital; 16 victims are being treated at 7 Division Military Hospital at Maimalari Cantonment, while six persons are hospitalised at the University Teaching Hospital (UMTH).
