A Nigerian soldier killed a humanitarian worker and another soldier at a military facility in northeastern Nigeria after shooting and injuring the co-pilot of a UN chopper.
This was confirmed by the Nigerian Army on Thursday evening in a tweet.
In the northeast, where the military is engaged in combat with armed groups like Boko Haram and its offshoots like the Islamic State West Africa Province, the co-pilot suffered injuries while working with the United Nations Humanitarian Air Service (UNHAS) (ISWAP).
Samson Nantip Zhakom, a spokesman for the Army's counterinsurgency operation, claimed that the unnamed soldier shot and killed a representative of one of the charities that aids locals before turning on a different soldier.
“Own troops on the ground immediately neutralized the errant personnel,” Zhakom said, adding that the injured co-pilot had been stabilized at a hospital.
It wasn’t clear immediately what caused the attack, but Zhakom said a probe was already underway.
UNHAS helps humanitarian workers get to and from Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state and the center of the conflict, by giving them rides.
A witness told the Reuters news agency that the soldier walked up to a UNHAS helicopter inside a military base in Damboa and shot the co-pilot as he tried to escape. He then turned around and shot at some aid workers trying to get into the helicopter.
The UNHAS said that until further notice, all helicopter trips to and from the field had been suspended.