At least 85 civilians were killed and 66 injured last Sunday night in an aerial operation by the Nigerian Army in the north of the country, which "accidentally" attacked a town where a religious festival was being celebrated with drones, authorities reported today, which constitutes one of the deadliest military bombings ever recorded in the country.
The air operation was directed against "terrorists" camping in the Nigerian state of Kaduna, but the Army "accidentally" attacked the town of Tudun Biri, the regional office of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) said in a statement. ).
The events occurred on the 3rd at around 9:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. local time (8:00 p.m.-9:00 p.m. GMT), when hundreds of people were celebrating the birth of the Prophet Muhammad in that town (mawlid holiday).
"So far 85 bodies have been buried, while searches continue," said NEMA's northwest Nigeria office. "(NEMA) has visited the Barau Dikko hospital, where the injured have been treated, and observed the hospitalization of 66 people with injuries and fractures of various degrees," he added. Among the victims, this institution stated, were children and the elderly.
"I was inside my house when the first bomb fell... We ran to the scene to help those affected, then a second bomb fell," Idris Dahiru, a resident of the area, told AFP. "My aunt, my brother's wife and his six children, my four brothers' wives are among the dead. My older brother's family is dead, except for his youngest son who survived," he said.
For its part, the human rights NGO Amnesty International, which raised the death toll to 120, called for an investigation into the air attack that would allow for the "prosecution of those responsible" through a "fair trial."
The supervisory commissioner of Internal Affairs and Security of Kaduna state, Samuel Aruwan, admitted the incident in a statement on Tuesday, but did not provide death tolls.
Likewise, the president of Nigeria, Bola Tinubu, expressed his "solidarity" this morning with the victims of the attack, which he described as an "unfortunate, disturbing and painful" event. "President Tinubu is conducting a thorough investigation into the incident and calls for calm to be maintained while the authorities diligently examine" the facts, said the Nigerian president's spokesman, Ajuri Ngelale.
Initially, the Nigerian Air Force (NAF) denied in a statement that this arm of the Army "accidentally killed innocent civilians."
Some Nigerian states - especially in the center and northwest of the country - suffer incessant attacks by "bandits", a term used in the country to name criminal gangs that commit mass assaults and kidnappings to obtain large ransoms and to whom the authorities sometimes called "terrorists."
The attacks are repeated despite the Nigerian government's repeated promises to end the violence by deploying more security forces. The armed forces often resort to airstrikes in their fight against militias.
This conflict has left more than 40,000 dead and two million displaced. Added to this insecurity is that caused since 2009 by the activity of the jihadist group Boko Haram in the northeast of the country and, as of 2016, also by its split, the State Islamic in West Africa Province (ISWAP).
