Aid Workers, MSF Leave IDPs Camp After Rann Attack

The evacuation of victims of the Boko Haram attack in Rann, Borno State. Twitter

The UN on Saturday said it has suspended humanitarian work in Rann, Borno state after Thursday’s Boko Haram attack.

The remote town, which is near the border, houses an Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camp with nearly 80,000 people who are dependent on emergency food and medical aid.

The attack, which took place at night, left aid workers dead, some injured while about three are missing.

This was disclosed by the UN spokeswoman, Samantha Newport.

“Operations in Rann were temporarily suspended for one week from yesterday morning (Friday).

“Yesterday, we evacuated 52 aid workers and the three deceased, in addition to 300 kilos (661 lbs) of medical supplies that were going to go bad,” she told AFP.

The aid workers are not believed to have been specifically targeted but were caught up in an attack on the military.

Those killed were Nigerians working for the International Organization for Migration and the UN children’s fund Unicef. The injured and missing are also locals.

Newport said an assessment would be conducted in the coming days about damage caused to facilities used in the relief effort, as well as security.

But she said there would be “extremely minimal impact” on people in Rann, where 55,000 people displaced by the Boko Haram conflict are housed in a camp.

Operations elsewhere in the region were also continuing as normal, she added.

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