Nigeria’s president Bola Tinubu on Tuesday ordered a thorough investigation into a weekend military drone attack that killed at least 85 people and injured 66 about 100 miles north of the country’s capital in the state of Kaduna.
The figures are from the National Emergency Management Agency, though witnesses said more had died.
Tinubu called it a bombing mishap which he said was “very unfortunate, disturbing, and painful.”
The country’s army chief apologized for the air strike and promised to pay the hospital bills of those hurt.
It hit residents of the Tudun Biri community who were participating in an annual Maulud Muslim celebration.
‘’We were celebrating Maulud when the airplane came and dropped the bomb, some died, some got injured and we all ran in to the house. When the men in the village heard what happened, they came out to check and that was when they dropped the second one and more people died.’’
The incident highlights a pattern of deadly aerial assaults by the Nigerian military and is the latest in a series of attacks that have killed civilians, which was the subject of a special Reuters report in June.
The area where the attack occurred has been grappling with kidnappings and killings by armed gangs, which security forces have been targeting using aerial strikes.
Samual Aruwan is the commissioner of the local state ministry of internal security and home affairs.
‘’The Nigerian army was on a routine mission against terrorists but unfortunately some members of the Tudun Biri community were affected.’’
An army spokesman said that troops carrying out aerial patrols observed a group of people and “wrongly analyzed and misinterpreted their pattern of activities to be similar to that of the bandits” before the drone strike.
