The Nigerian Army conducted a “mistaken” drone strike on a village during a Muslim festival on Sunday, killing over 90 people, according to local reports.
Military officials in the country initially denied that they were responsible for the bombing but subsequently admitted that they had conducted drone strikes on the village of Tudun Biri, in central Kaduna state. Locals speaking to Nigeria’s Daily Trust said that they were shocked by an initial bombing, which killed what appeared to be dozens of people in the village, and ran towards the victims to lend aid. The military then struck the town a second time, creating a much larger casualty count.
The Nigerian military has a history of similar errors. Daily Trust claimed to have documented at least 15 incidents in recent memory of the army bombing innocent civilians in alleged anti-terrorist operations. The Associated Press counted about 400 civilians killed in “counter-terrorism” strikes since 2017. In a particularly harrowing incident that year, the Army conducted an airstrike over a refugee camp housing women and children who had been rescued from captivity under the jihadist group Boko Haram, killing up to 120 people. Boko Haram raided the camp less than a week later.
Chief of Army Staff Lt. General Taoreed Lagbaja visited the village on Tuesday to pray alongside the survivors. Overseeing Commissioner of Internal Security and Home Affairs Samuel Aruwan conceded in a statement shared with Nigerian media on Monday that the Army “was on a routine mission against terrorists but inadvertently affected members of the community.” Several Nigerian outlets described the terrorists in question as “bandits,” a term typically used to refer to Muslim Fulani terrorists who have campaigned for years to kill or otherwise displace the indigenous Christian populations of Nigeria’s Middle Belt. Christian leaders there have accused the government of intimidating Nigerian media into not properly identifying the “bandits” in reports on their genocidal attacks.
President Bola Tinubu reportedly ordered an investigation into the incident. A presidential spokesman said on Tuesday that Tinubu “describes the incident as very unfortunate, disturbing, and painful, expressing indignation and grief over the tragic loss of Nigerian lives.”
The Nigerian government has not released an official count of the dead and injured in the incident at press time. Initial reports from the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) estimated at least 85 dead following the erroneous strike. As of Tuesday, Tudun Biri residents told the Daily Trust they had buried at least 93 people and another 60 were receiving medical attention. Much of the village was assembled in the heart of the community to celebrate Maulud, or Mawlid, an Islamic holiday marking the birthday of Muhammad.
“We buried 93 people including women and children while mutilated bodies were concealed in bags and buried separately,” local leader Liman Tudun Biri said.
Bello Shehu Gara, a survivor of the attacks, told the Daily Trust that the high death count was partially due to residents running towards those killed by the initial strike and then being targeted themselves.
“We saw many people injured and calling for help. We decided to return to rescue them, but the plane dropped another bomb, killing many on the spot. The rest of us ran for our lives,” Shehu narrated. “People are angry, many people are leaving the community because there are fears that the attack was deliberate.”
Some of those speaking to the Daily Trust said they believed that “most” of the population of the village was dead. One resident, identified as Idris Dahiru, said in remarks to BBC that he lost 34 family members on Sunday night.
“The first bomb exploded without warning, killing innocent people, including women and children; some victims were torn apart by the blast,” Dahiru explained. “As we rushed to aid the injured, the jet returned, unleashing a second bomb, this time, many of those who had come to help were among the casualties.”
The incident is the latest in a string of similar deadly mishaps on the part of the Nigerian military. The Daily Trust noted that it had tallied “15 other air strikes on the civilian population by security operatives, especially by the Nigeria Air Force, between 2014 and 2023, that led to the death of dozens of people.” The airstrikes documented occurred in seven states, most in the Middle Belt or the jihadist-plagued northeast.
“The incidence of miscalculated airstrikes is assuming a worrisome dimension in the country,” Atiku Abubakar, the former vice president and presidential candidate who lost to Tinubu in the March election, said this week in response to the latest bombing, demanding an investigation into military competence.
Many of the victims of such errors are individuals close to the communities most affected by terrorism. In the 2017 incident, for example, the Nigerian Army killed between 76 and 120 people at a camp for internally displaced people in northeast Borno state, the stronghold of Islamic State affiliate Boko Haram. The camp was intended to house girls and women Boko Haram terrorists had kidnapped and the children they bore in captivity.
“This kind of incident happens occasionally in war,” Abba Kyari, chief of staff to then-President Muhammadu Buhari, said at the time.
