Nigeria botched air strike 'may have killed up to 236 people'

[WhiteTara]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/nigeria-botched-air-strike-may-killed-236-people-163104709.html

Kano (Nigeria) (AFP) - As many as 236 people may have been killed in the botched Nigerian air strike against Boko Haram that hit a camp for civilians displaced by the unrest, a local official told AFP on Saturday.

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) on Friday had said the death toll from Tuesday's strike on the town of Rann in the far northeast had risen to 90, although it claimed that could climb as high as 170.

But Babagana Malarima, president of the local Kala-Balge government in Borno State where the strike took place, claimed the death toll is much higher.

"From what the people who buried the dead victims with their hands told me, not those who treated the wounded, they buried 234 dead," said Malarima on Saturday.

"And I later got a report that two of the injured taken to Maiduguri died."

The bombed camp had been set up to help people fleeing Boko Haram Islamists in Borno State.

Nigeria's air force said it was investigating the incident but military commanders had already claimed it was a mistake