A local governor in Niger has informed AFP on Sunday that a Nigerian Air Force attack, “targeting bandits”, has killed seven children and injured five others by mistake.
The governor of the Maradi district,
Chaibou Aboubacar, said, “There was a mistake with the Nigerian strikes on the border that resulted in victims on our territory in the village of Nachade”
“The victims are 12 children, seven of them dead and five wounded.”
Villagers in Northern Nigeria have previously reported civilian casualties as a result of frequent near bombardments.
A military jet responding to a Boko Haram onslaught dropped a bomb on a complex where residents were holding child christening in 2021.
Again, a fighter plane on a mission to combat Boko Haram militants accidentally bombed troops of the Nigerian Army, killing almost 20 soldiers the same year.
The soldiers from Ngandu village were reportedly heading to Mainok, the headquarters of the Kaga Local Government Area in Borno state, which had been attacked by militants from the Islamic State-backed Boko Haram faction, the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), formerly known as Jam’at Ahl as-Sunnah lid-Da’wah wa’l-Jihad.
Some Chibok schoolgirls, who were kidnapped by Boko Haram in 2014 and rescued last year, also claimed that three of their classmates were killed by Air Force bombings.
An aggressive aerial bombardment carried out by the NAF Alpha jet around Genu town in Niger State in June 2021 resulted in the death of some wedding guests.