TheCable

President Muhammadu Buhari has described the attack on some United Nations aid workers in Borno state as the “height of bestiality”.

Earlier on Friday, the insurgents overran a military base in Rann, Borno state, killing at least four soldiers, four policemen and three humanitarian workers.

They also abducted a female nurse.

In a statement by Femi Adesina, his spokesman, Buhari said insurgents are “godless and brutish”.

“As I have always maintained, no true religion advocates hurting the innocent”, he said.

“To now further attack and kill those offering humanitarian aid is the height of bestiality. It is odious before both God and man.”

Buhari also sympathised with the UN and other humanitarian agencies working at Rann, and in other parts of the country.

He said such “cowardly” attacks can only bolster the “determination” of the federal government to bring the Boko Haram insurgency to a decisive end, “in the shortest possible time”.

The UN had earlier condemned the attack.

Edward Kallon, the U.N. Humanitarian coordinator in Nigeria, had called on the authorities to ensure the perpetrators “are brought to justice”.