Nigeria: soldier kills aid worker, injures UN co-pilot at army base

A Nigerian soldier shot dead an aid worker, and another soldier and wounded a co-pilot of a UN helicopter in Nigeria's jihadist-ridden northeast, the military said Thursday.

On Thursday, at a military base in the northeast, "a soldier shot and killed a staff member of one of the NGOs providing humanitarian aid" in the region, said the spokesman for the anti-jihadist military operation, Samson Nantip Zhakom.

"The same soldier also killed another soldier and wounded the co-pilot of one of the UN helicopters," Zhakom said in a statement, adding that the co-pilot's condition was "stable".

The statement added that the soldier was then "immediately neutralised" by his colleagues, without giving further details on the killings and the killer's motive.

The bodies of the two victims were taken to a military hospital, Zhakom said.

The army has announced an investigation. There was no immediate comment from the authorities.

Since 2009, Nigeria's armed forces have struggled to fight the Islamic State and Boko Haram jihadist groups leading an insurgency northeast of Africa's most populous country.

The conflict, which has left more than 40,000 people dead and two million displaced, has created one of the worst global humanitarian crises of the 21st century.