On January 17, 2017, the skies above Rann, the headquarters of Kala Balge local government area, went from blue to red, as 126 civilian were killed by the Nigerian military in an accidental air operation.
A day after the accidental bombing, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), an international humanitarian non-governmental organisation, said an estimated 50 people were killed and about 120 injured.
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said the airstrike killed and wounded scores of people, including twenty aid workers from the Nigerian Red Cross Society (NRCS).
Babagana Malarima, chairman of Kala Balge local government as at the time of the bombing, initially said 236 people had died in the attack, but later revised the figures, stating that the figures available to him were a lump sum of injured and killed persons.
Lucky Irabor, a major general and theatre commander of the operation Lafiya Dole, said 112 persons were killed and 97 injured in the accidental bombing.
TheCable however learnt from locals, that 126 people died on the first day of the accidental bombing, while another 108 persons sustained various degrees of injury. Some others have died in the days following the attack, but none, not a single household has been compensated for the military misnomer.
Here is a list of all those who died from the very first day of the attack:
Red Cross says only six of its members were killed, while MSF insists that none of its staff were killed, further stating that those who died were contract staff.
