Nigeria releases death toll from botched air raid

By Olarewaju Kola

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria

The Nigerian military on Thursday released its first official death toll from a botched air strike which hit civilians last month.

The military said 112 people died when an air strike hit a camp for displaced civilians in the country’s northeast.

Maj. Gen. Lucky Irabor said a preliminary investigation by a military board of inquiry revealed 97 people were also wounded.

"So far, it has been established that the strike was a mistake,” he told reporters on Thursday in Maiduguri, Borno’s provincial capital.

An air force fighter jet targeting fleeing Boko Haram fighters mistakenly hit the civilian settlement at Rann, a remote community on the Nigerian border with Cameroon on Jan. 17.

Medecins Sans Frontieres earlier put the death toll at 100. Six Red Cross humanitarian workers were among those killed.

Nigeria is still battling a six-year Boko Haram insurgency which has claimed over 50,000 civilian lives and displaced over 2.5 million people, according to a recent figures released by the regional government.