Two dozen Nigerian security operatives were killed after a helicopter carrying dead and wounded soldiers from an evacuation mission in Niger state — 249 km north of Abuja —crashed on Monday, Al Jazeera reported.
The evacuation mission had been to retrieve soldiers wounded or killed in an ambush by armed bandits in Chukuba village in the Shiroro local government area of Niger state. A spokesperson for the Nigerian military, Major General Edward Buba confirmed the figures during a press briefing in Abuja on Thursday. He added that there were 14 soldiers and seven wounded ones aboard the aircraft at the time of the crash, along with two pilots and two crew members, according to Al Jazeera. An investigation is underway to investigate the cause of the crash, Buba said.
Moreover, authorities have not yet disclosed the details of the evacuation mission or any other relevant information about the crash, including whether it had survivors or not. Nigeria President Bola Tinubu said in a statement on Tuesday, “These officers and men were answering the call of duty while on an evacuation mission. In their dedicated service to our beloved country, they paid the ultimate price.”
However, according to a local news outlet leadership, the helicopter was evacuating the bodies of security operatives killed by bandits before crashing in Chukuba. Additionally, the newspaper said that the sources confirmed that the armed men carried sophisticated weapons which could bring a helicopter down, reported Al Jazeera. Moreover, the leadership added that the helicopter took off from Kaduna Airfield to Minna but it lost contact with control towers from both Kaduna and Minna. However, according to Premium Times, another local outlet, Dogo Gide, the notorious leader of a group of Bandits that has been a source of terror across parts of northwestern Nigeria bordering the countries of Niger and Chad has taken responsibility for the attack.