At least 200 people are feared dead after Nigerian military jets struck a village market while pursuing Islamist militants in the northeast of the country on \u200cSaturday night, a Councillor for the area and residents said this Sunday.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Nigeria’s Air Force said it had killed Boko Haram militants in the Jilli axis in Borno state, but in a statement released to Reuters<\/em> this Sunday it did not mention hitting a market. It did not respond \u2060to further requests for comment.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The strike occurred in a village in Yobe on the border with Borno, the heartland of a long-running insurgency that has killed thousands of people and displaced millions more.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Lawan Zanna Nur Geidam, the Councillor and Traditional Head of Fuchimeram ward in Yobe’s Geidam district told Reuters<\/em> that those injured were being taken to hospitals in Yobe and Borno.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n “It’s a very devastating incident at Jilli Market. As I’m speaking to you, over 200 \u200cpeople \u2060have lost their lives from the air strike at the market,” he said in a telephone interview.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Three other residents and an official from an international humanitarian agency confirmed the strike and likely death toll.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Yobe State Emergency Management Agency said it had \u2060received preliminary reports of an incident at Jilli Market “which reportedly resulted in casualties affecting some marketers” and activated emergency response.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Ahmed Ali, a 43-year-old resident who sells medical consumables at the \u2060market, said he had been injured in a blast.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n “I became so scared and attempted to run away, but a friend dragged me and we all \u2060lay on the ground,” he said from hospital.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n –Reuters–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":31627,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[78,26],"class_list":["post-31626","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-featured","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"At least 200 people are feared dead after Nigerian military jets struck a village market","published_date":"2026-04-12 16:24:05","news_description":"At least 200 people are feared dead after Nigerian military jets struck a village market","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/31626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/31626\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31628,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/31626\/revisions\/31628"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=31626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}