Nigeria’s Defence Headquarters this Monday denied reports of civilian deaths from airstrikes on suspected bandits in \u200bthe northern Niger state, saying the strikes were intelligence-led \u200cand hit only militant targets.<\/p>\n
Defence Spokesperson Major-General Michael Onoja said drone strikes carried out overnight between May 9 and 10 targeted the villages \u200bof Katerma, Bokko, Kusasu and Kuduru in the Shiroro \u200bdistrict after intelligence indicated that armed gangs known \u2060locally as bandits were gathering to plan attacks.<\/p>\n
The denial came \u200bin response to reports in Nigerian media alleging civilian casualties, \u200bunderscoring longstanding concerns about the impact on local communities of airstrikes in Nigeria’s conflict zones.<\/p>\n
Nigerian security forces are battling banditry in the northwest and \u200ba 17-year Islamist insurgency in the northeast.<\/p>\n
Last month, around 200 \u200bpeople were killed after military jets struck a village market while pursuing \u200cIslamist \u2060militants in the northeast, local residents told Reuters.<\/p>\n
In the latest airstrikes, Onoja said at least 70 suspected bandits were killed in Kusasu alone. Post-strike intelligence showed surviving fighters regrouping, with more \u200bthan 200 \u200bmotorcycles moving toward \u2060nearby Zango village, he added.<\/p>\n
“The strikes were precisely targeted at identified terrorist enclaves and achieved \u200btheir intended military objectives,” Onoja said, adding that \u200bresidents \u2060had relocated to another village beforehand, limiting the likelihood of civilian presence.<\/p>\n
He didn’t say whether civilians were given warning of strikes.
\nThe \u2060military \u200bhas ordered field units to investigate any \u200bclaims of civilian harm, Onoja said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
–Reuters–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":14609,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[26],"class_list":["post-34221","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Onoja said at least 70 suspected bandits were killed in Kusasu alone.","published_date":"","news_description":"Onoja said at least 70 suspected bandits were killed in Kusasu alone.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/34221","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":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/34221\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34224,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/34221\/revisions\/34224"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=34221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}