At least 85 civilians killed by army drone attack

ABUJA (AP):

At least 85 civilians were killed when an army drone attack erroneously targeted a religious gathering in northwest Nigeria, officials confirmed Tuesday, as the president ordered a probe into the latest in a series of such deadly mistakes in Nigeria’s conflict zones.

The strike took place Sunday night in Kaduna state’s Tudun Biri village while residents observed the Muslim holiday marking the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad, government officials said. The military believed it was “targeting terrorists and bandits”, officials said.

At least 66 people also were injured in the attack, the National Emergency Management Agency said in a statement. Eighty-five bodies, including of children, women and the elderly, have been buried so far, as a search continues for any additional victims, the agency said.

Nigeria’s army chief, Lt Gen Taoreed Lagbaja, apologised for the drone strike during a visit to the village Tuesday and said it had been carried out “based on the observation of some tactics usually employed by bandits”.

“Unfortunately, the reports we got revealed it was innocent civilians that the drone conducted a strike on,” Lagbaja said.

Since 2017, some 400 civilians have been killed by airstrikes that the military said were targeting armed groups in the deadly security crisis in the country’s north, according to the Lagos-based SBM Intelligence security firm.

“The incidence of miscalculated airstrikes is assuming a worrisome dimension in the country,” said Atiku Abubakar, Nigeria’s former vice-president and the main opposition presidential candidate in this year’s election.

Nigerian President Bola Tinubu ordered “a thorough and full-fledged investigation into the incident”. However, such investigations and their outcomes are often shrouded in secrecy.

Nigeria’s military often conducts air raids as it fights the extremist violence and rebel attacks that have destabilised Nigeria’s north for more than a decade, often leaving civilian casualties in its wake, including in January when dozens were killed in Nasarawa state and in December 2022 when dozens also died in Zamfara state.

Major General Edward Buba, a spokesman for Nigeria’s Defense Headquarters, said in a statement Tuesday that terror suspects often “deliberately embed themselves within civilian population centres”, though he wasn’t speaking specifically about Sunday’s holiday gathering.

Analysts have in the past raised concerns about the lack of collaboration among Nigerian security agencies as well as the absence of due diligence in some of their special operations in conflict zones.