A U.N. humanitarian convoy under military escort came under Boko Haram gunfire during an ambush in northeast Nigeria’s Borno state, the United Nations and Nigerian military said Friday. Three humanitarian staff members and two soldiers were injured.
The convoy was returning to Maiduguri late Thursday after making delivery of much-needed food supplies to a camp of 24,000 impoverished people displaced by Boko Haram raids in the town of Bama. Several relief groups were part of the convoy.
“Troops returning from Bama on humanitarian escort duty, were ambushed enroute Maiduguri by suspected remnants of Boko Haram terrorists hiding in Meleri village, a few kilometers from Kawuri,” Nigerian army spokesman Col. Sani Usman said in a statement.
Troops escorting the convoy engaged the attackers in a shootout, forcing the gunmen to flee, Usman said.
The attack prompted a temporary suspension of U.N. humanitarian assistance missions in the area pending a reevaluation of the security situation, a UNICEF statement said.
On Wednesday, the French medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said Nigeria’s northeast was on the verge of “famine,” with hundreds of thousands trapped without help, and must be declared a “top emergency.”
MSF has raised alarm on acute food shortage and malnutrition in Bama camp and said at least 188 people died, mainly from diarrhea and malnutrition in a month.
Boko Haram seized Bama in September 2014 in a deadly raid that forced thousands to flee. The town was reclaimed by the military in March last year.