The Nigerian military killed and injured children in an air raid in neighbouring Niger, according to a local governor in Niger, state television, and an aid organisation.
According to Chaibou Aboubacar, the governor of Maradi, the incident occurred on Friday in the town of Nachade in the Maradi area of Niger, a few kilometres from the Nigerian border.
“With the Nigerian border strikes, there was a blunder that resulted in victims on our land in the village of Nachade,” the officer explained.
“There are 12 youngsters among the victims, seven of whom have died and five others have been injured.”
“The parents were undoubtedly attending a ceremony and the children were probably playing when the strikes” hit them, according to the governor.
He added four children died quickly and three more died “while being brought to the hospital due to their injuries.”
He didn’t explain how he knew the strike was carried out by the Nigerian military. It was also carried out by Nigerian forces, according to Niger’s national television, although no evidence was provided.
Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres, or MSF), a medical aid organisation that treated some of the injured, confirmed the strike. Twelve individuals, including four children, were killed, according to the report. The Nigerian military was pursuing targets fleeing a border village, local residents told MSF.
Investigation was going on
“The Nigerian Air Force does not conduct incursions beyond Nigeria’s national boundaries as a matter of policy.” “That is our strategy,” Nigeria’s head of defence information, Major General Jimmy Akpor, stated. He stated that a probe was being conducted.
The exact cause of the strike is unknown, however, banditry is well-known in the area.
The International Crisis Group (ICG), located in Brussels, expressed concern in April 2021 that the third centre for hardliner armed organisations could form in Maradi, using the acts of Nigerian gangs and local community tensions.
Hardliner fronts have already been established in Niger. Boko Haram, a Nigerian terrorist organisation, and its dissident offshoot, the Islamic State in West Africa (ISWAP), operate in the southeast, while ISIL (ISIS) and al-Qaeda affiliates operate in the west.
Maradi is home to 100,000 Nigerian refugees, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
