•Troops boarding the Hercules C-130 for the Gambia...yesterday. PHOTO: Seun Akioye
•NAF’s strikes at IDPs’ camp should be probed
WHEN a supposed haven for people uprooted by terrorists ironically became another place of death and destruction, there were inevitable questions. What happened? How did it happen? Why did it happen? Was the happening avoidable? These questions and other connected ones need to be answered following the tragic death of no fewer than 76 people after a Nigerian Air Force (NAF) fighter jet targeting Boko Haram insurgents on January 17 accidentally bombed an Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camp in Rann, Kala/Bage Local Government Area in the northern part of Borno State.
The casualty figures have not been definitively determined, but the fatalities reportedly included IDPs, humanitarian workers and soldiers. The incongruity was unmistakable. The director of operations of the charity organisation Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), Jean-Clement Cabrol, was quoted as saying: “This large-scale attack on vulnerable people who have already fled from extreme violence is shocking and unacceptable.”
Indeed, the authorities have a lot of explaining to do. The Theatre Commander, Operation Lafiya Dole, which is designed to counter Boko Haram insurgency, Major-Gen. Lucky Irabor, told reporters: “We got reports of a gathering of Boko Haram terrorists at Kala/Balge… and a Nigerian Air Force (NAF) fighter jet conducted an aerial strike on the gatherings of insurgents. This resulted in killings of several terrorists and civilians, including some staff of MSF and ICRC…There are casualties; there were deaths and injuries… two soldiers were also affected.”
He added:”I coordinated and I directed that the air component of the operation should go and address the problem. Unfortunately, the strike was conducted but it turned out that other civilians were somewhere around the area and they were affected. It is unfortunate and that is the reason the war must come to an end; because the cost is certainly not good enough for everyone.”
It is not enough to lament the tragedy. It is also not enough for Irabor to say: “the military could not have deliberately targeted a civilian population.” The tragedy calls for a thorough investigation. Nothing short of this will be enough. It is reassuring that the theatre commander said “the issue would be investigated to ascertain what went wrong.”
A report quoted a source as saying: “It is going to be a comprehensive audit of the information available to the Tactical Air Command, the directives given to the pilot and his crew, how the flight took off, why the plane could not distinguish a settlement from insurgents’ clusters and why the bombing was done.”
Regrettably, the bungled bombing has left a blot on the performance record of the Nigerian Air Force in the anti-terror war, despite its claim of having “recorded 6,000 hours of counter-insurgency missions without hurting any civilian.” It should be emphasised that the country’s forces need to demonstrate greater professionalism to minimise the possibility of a recurrence of this kind of tragedy.
The possibility that the disaster could be attributed to “failure of intelligence” is intriguing, particularly information that the bombing was prompted by “an intelligence alert on the regrouping of some insurgents in Rann.” A report said a foreign country that had been providing reliable counter-insurgency intelligence apparently got it wrong this time.
It is alarming to learn from a report that “The error occurred because the IDPs’ camp was not among the list of camps made available to the Nigerian Air Force. There is a strong suspicion that the camp was recently set up by emergency bodies and Borno State without updating the list given to the military.” What this suggests is an inexcusable disconnect.
The larger import of this incident is that the war against Boko Haram, which has lasted eight years, has lasted too long. It is high time the war ended with a complete defeat of the terrorists.
WHEN a supposed haven for people uprooted by terrorists ironically became another place of death and destruction, there were inevitable questions. What happened? How did it happen? Why did it happen? Was the happening avoidable? These questions and other connected ones need to be answered following the tragic death of no fewer than 76 people after a Nigerian Air Force (NAF) fighter jet targeting Boko Haram insurgents on January 17 accidentally bombed an Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camp in Rann, Kala/Bage Local Government Area in the northern part of Borno State.
The casualty figures have not been definitively determined, but the fatalities reportedly included IDPs, humanitarian workers and soldiers. The incongruity was unmistakable. The director of operations of the charity organisation Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), Jean-Clement Cabrol, was quoted as saying: “This large-scale attack on vulnerable people who have already fled from extreme violence is shocking and unacceptable.”
Indeed, the authorities have a lot of explaining to do. The Theatre Commander, Operation Lafiya Dole, which is designed to counter Boko Haram insurgency, Major-Gen. Lucky Irabor, told reporters: “We got reports of a gathering of Boko Haram terrorists at Kala/Balge… and a Nigerian Air Force (NAF) fighter jet conducted an aerial strike on the gatherings of insurgents. This resulted in killings of several terrorists and civilians, including some staff of MSF and ICRC…There are casualties; there were deaths and injuries… two soldiers were also affected.”
He added:”I coordinated and I directed that the air component of the operation should go and address the problem. Unfortunately, the strike was conducted but it turned out that other civilians were somewhere around the area and they were affected. It is unfortunate and that is the reason the war must come to an end; because the cost is certainly not good enough for everyone.”
It is not enough to lament the tragedy. It is also not enough for Irabor to say: “the military could not have deliberately targeted a civilian population.” The tragedy calls for a thorough investigation. Nothing short of this will be enough. It is reassuring that the theatre commander said “the issue would be investigated to ascertain what went wrong.”
A report quoted a source as saying: “It is going to be a comprehensive audit of the information available to the Tactical Air Command, the directives given to the pilot and his crew, how the flight took off, why the plane could not distinguish a settlement from insurgents’ clusters and why the bombing was done.”
Regrettably, the bungled bombing has left a blot on the performance record of the Nigerian Air Force in the anti-terror war, despite its claim of having “recorded 6,000 hours of counter-insurgency missions without hurting any civilian.” It should be emphasised that the country’s forces need to demonstrate greater professionalism to minimise the possibility of a recurrence of this kind of tragedy.
The possibility that the disaster could be attributed to “failure of intelligence” is intriguing, particularly information that the bombing was prompted by “an intelligence alert on the regrouping of some insurgents in Rann.” A report said a foreign country that had been providing reliable counter-insurgency intelligence apparently got it wrong this time.
It is alarming to learn from a report that “The error occurred because the IDPs’ camp was not among the list of camps made available to the Nigerian Air Force. There is a strong suspicion that the camp was recently set up by emergency bodies and Borno State without updating the list given to the military.” What this suggests is an inexcusable disconnect.
The larger import of this incident is that the war against Boko Haram, which has lasted eight years, has lasted too long. It is high time the war ended with a complete defeat of the terrorists.
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