Nigeria Drone Strike Inadvertently Kills 85 People
Kanako Mita and Chika Mori
Modern Tokyo Times
Nigeria confirmed that a military drone strike inadvertently killed 85 people in northern parts of the country.
The Islamist insurgency and ethnic massacres continue to blight Nigeria. Hence, only recently, Boko Haram Sunni Islamists massacred 37 villagers in two brutal terrorist attacks in northeastern Nigeria.
France 24 reports, “The Boko Haram Islamic extremist group launched an insurgency in northeastern Nigeria in 2009 in an effort to establish their radical interpretation of Islamic law, or Sharia, in the region. At least 35,000 people have been killed and more than 2 million displaced due to the extremist violence concentrated in Borno state, which neighbors Yobe.”
Accordingly, President Bola Tinubu and the government of Nigeria passed a recent supplementary budget of $2.8 billion to focus on the internal defense and security of the country. Henceforth, the inadvertent drone strike killing many civilians highlights the military failings of this nation and will put pressure on President Tinbu.
Voice of America reports, “The deadly attack occurred in the village of Tudun Biri in northern Kaduna state Sunday during a celebration of a Muslim holiday.”
One resident, Husseini Ibrahim, notified AFP that he “lost 13 members of my immediate family among the 85 that were killed. They included my children and those of my brothers, seven boys and six girls. We buried the victims today.”
Uba Sani, the state governor of Kaduna, uttered, “We are determined to prevent a repeat of this tragedy and reassure our people that their protection would be prioritized in the sustained fight against terrorists, bandits and other criminal elements.”
The fear is that the death toll from the inadvertent drone strike will increase further. Accordingly, with many children and women killed by the drone strike, an uproar is emerging in Nigeria.
Nigeria is blighted by religious, ethnic, and criminal massacres that are alarming.
Lee Jay Walker says, “Christians are being killed by various Muslim forces in Nigeria – from Sunni Islamist terrorist groups to ethnic massacres by the Fulani aimed at Christians. The only consistency in Nigeria is that fresh massacres will follow – and the international media will downplay the crisis by taking the ‘anti-Christian’ element out of the equation.”
The Guardian reports, “Nigerian military bombing raids have caused civilian casualties in the past. At least 20 fishers were killed and several injured in an attack in September 2021 in Kwatar Daban Masara on Lake Chad in the north-east, when the military mistook them for militants. In January 2017, at least 112 people were killed when a fighter jet struck a camp housing 40,000 people displaced by jihadist violence in the town of Rann near the border with Cameroon.”
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