Yobe: Stray bullets kill 3 at military post

Three passengers were feared dead Saturday at a military post in Yobe State when one of the tyres of the military patrol vehicles and an ambulance burst while conveying the body of a soldier from Maiduguri to Abuja by 12 noon at Damagum on Damaturu-Potiskum road.


Damagum is a council headquarters and 70 kilomteres west of Damaturu, the state capital.


The sound of burst tyre, according to eyewitness, Ibrahim Buar, triggered the soldiers at Damagum military checkpoint to fire back at the vehicle; and hit three passengers in a commercial vehicle trailing the convoy of military vehicles. "Our people near the military checkpoint here were also scared, thinking that it was a bomb blast by Boko Haram gunmen and they started to run for safety, only to realise that the tyre bust forced the soldiers to take cover by firing at the vehicle. The stray bullets however hit three passengers in a commercial vehicle travelling to Jos or Kano," said Buar. He said one of the passengers died on the spot, while the other two died in a hospital because of excessive loss of blood and other injuries sustained from the stray bullets.


He said contrary to what had been spread about yesterday's incident at the military post in Damagum, it was not a Boko Haram bomb blast targeted at soldiers at the post, but a mistaken act of soldiers to respond to a tyre bust at their Damagum military post yesterday (Saturday). Confirming the incident yesterday in Damaturu, spokesman of Joint Task Force (JTF), Capt. Lazarus Eli said there was a mistaken act at a military post on Damaturu-Potiskum road, where three people were feared dead at Damagum, as the soldiers fired at a patrol vehicle on hearing a "deafening sound" of burst tyre yesterday by noon.

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