Accidental airstrike by Nigerian military claims 10 civilian lives

Airstrikes by Nigerian military forces targeting suspected jihadists in the northwest Sokoto state killed 10 civilians and injured six others, local officials said Thursday.

The strikes were aimed at positions of the Lakurawa jihadist group in a forest in Silame district but instead hit Gidan Bisa and Runtawa, two villages on the edge of the forest, destroying homes and livestock.

"Two military jets carried out the attacks on the two villages during an operation against Lakurawa terrorists in nearby Surame forest around 7:00 am (0600 GMT)," said Abubakar Muhammad, the local administrator of Silame, who attended the funeral of the victims.

"We lost 10 people in the incident while six others were injured. Many homes, livestock and grain silos were destroyed in the airstrikes."

Sokoto's state governor Ahmad Aliyu blamed the deaths on an "accidental misfire from the Nigerian army", without giving a toll.

Aliyu said he was in contact with the Nigerian military to seek a "thorough investigation" of the cause of the incident that caused "avoidable loss of life".

The governor posted pictures from the scene showing at least seven bodies wrapped in clothes and plastic mats, as well as charred livestock and scorched mud houses.

An aide to President Bola Tinubu on Wednesday walked back his earlier claim that the civilian deaths were fake news.

"I deeply regret any misunderstanding my initial report may have caused," Dada Olusegun wrote on X. "These findings underscore the challenges of reporting on complex operations in areas where civilian and bandit presences overlap."

But a Nigerian military spokesman insisted the targets of the airstrikes in the two villages were jihadists.

"The targets struck... have been positively identified as associated with the Lakurawa group, reinforcing the justification for the military action taken," Lieutenant Colonel Abubakar Abdullahi said in a statement.

"All military operations are conducted based on thorough intelligence and reconnaissance missions... to ensure precision and protect civilian lives."

The Nigerian military has a history of accidental bombings of civilians in its battle against jihadists and criminal gangs in Nigeria's northeast and northwest.

In December 2023, a Nigerian force mistook a Muslim religious gathering for bandits in Tudun Biri, a community in northwestern Kaduna state, killing at least 85 people, mostly women and children.