By our reporter| The United Nations has recanted Sunday’s claim that 110 farmers were killed by suspected Boko Haram insurgents in Zabarmari community, Borno State.
Borno governor, Babagana Zulum, had during a mass burial of the deceased farmers on Sunday morning said that 43 farmers were killed by Boko Haram insurgents on Saturday.
But on Sunday evening, the UN issued a statement which quoted the head of the UN System in Nigeria, Edward Kallon, claiming that at least 110 farmers were killed in the said attack.
The UN version of the death toll has since been accepted by most Nigerians on social media.
However, in a new statement on Monday, the UN admitted its initial statement was inaccurate.
The UN’s head, public information, Ms Sabbagh, in an email seen by Alabingco.com, explained the earlier numbers quoted by Mr Kallon were incorrectly sourced and urged journalists to disregard the earlier statement.
“Please note the number of 110 civilians killed on Saturday’s attack is an unconfirmed number and the correct version of the statement by the Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator is the one published yesterday on Reliefweb and used on OCHA Nigeria’s Twitter account:
In the fresh statement, the humanitarian agency replaced the portion where it quoted “110 deaths” with “unspecified figure”.
This time around, Mr Kallon was quoted saying “tens of civilians were ruthlessly killed and many others were wounded in this attack.”
The remaining paragraphs of the one-paged statement remained the same.
The UN did not, however, explain how it got the earlier figure which was quoted by all national media outlets, and at least one international media organisation.
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