Accidental bombing of Rann was due to communication gap – NAF

The Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Sadique Abubakar while speaking to journalists during the weekend said the accidental bombing of Rann Internally Displaced Persons ,IDP's camp in Borno was due to communication gap.

Over 120 persons were said to have died in the accidental bombing of IDPs that occurred in January.

Abubakar confirmed that the committee set up to investigate the incident has submitted its report.

He; “The report has been submitted, but I would not let you into the findings of the report. This is because we are forwarding it to the Defence Headquarters and from there to the Ministry of Defence. But one thing I want to say is that it is a very tragic incident. It has happened and it is something that is associated with war.

“Even recently, some foreign powers also bombed friendly forces mistakenly. What is important to us is to pray for the families of the deceased and support them. And this is what we have been doing.

“Usually when a thing like this happens, you find out that there is a communication gap somewhere. It is the left for us to find out: Why did that communication gap exist? What can we do to ensure that it does not come up again?”

“If there are very glaring cases of people who are negligent, we will not hesitate to be very decisive to deal with that situation.

“We have interacted with a number of Non-Governmental Organisations in that area. We have advised them that any time they are going for outreaches, they must give us a notice. We have suggested that they use the Red Cross insignia. This must be done so that anybody flying over will see the insignia and know that these are outreach gatherings and not Boko Haram.

“No matter what, we have always double-checked our intelligence and will ensure that we do so before deploying airplanes. We are working on that so we do not have this situation again.

“We have flown over 7,000 hours for over eight years and this is the first time we are having the Rann incident. I am not justifying the bombing. It was tragic, but war in itself is tragic.”