ABUJA ā 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 an investigation into the latest in a series of such deadly mistakes in Nigeriaās 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 ātargeting terrorists and bandits," officials said.
Recommended Videos
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.
Nigeriaās army chief, Lt. Gen. Taoreed Lagbaja, apologized 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.ā
āUnfortunately, the reports we got revealed it was innocent civilians that the drone conducted a strike on,ā 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 countryās north, according to the Lagos-based SBM Intelligence security firm.
āThe incidence of miscalculated airstrikes is assuming a worrisome dimension in the country,ā said Atiku Abubakar, Nigeriaās former vice-president and the main opposition presidential candidate in this yearās election.
Nigerian President Bola Tinubu ordered āa thorough and full-fledged investigation into the incident.ā However, such investigations and their outcomes are often shrouded in secrecy.
Nigeriaās military often conducts air raids as it fights the extremist violence and rebel attacks that have destabilized Nigeriaās 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.
Maj. Gen. Edward Buba, a spokesman for Nigeriaās Defense Headquarters, said in a statement Tuesday that terror suspects often ādeliberately embed themselves within civilian population centers," 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.
One major concern has been the proliferation of drones within Nigerian security agencies such that āthere is no guiding principle one when these can be used,ā according to Kabir Adamu, the founder of Beacon Consulting, a security firm based in Nigeriaās capital, Abuja.
"The military sees itself as a little bit over and above civilian accountability as it were," Adamu said.
In the incident in Nasarawa in January, when 39 people were killed, the Nigerian air force āprovided little information and no justiceā over the incident, Human Rights Watch said.
Such incidents are enabled by a lack of punishment for erring officers or agencies, according to Isa Sanusi, Amnesty International's director in Nigeria.
"The Nigerian military is taking lightly the lack of consequences ... and the civilians they are supposed to protect are the ones paying the price of their incompetence and lack of due diligence," Sanusi told The Associated Press.