An airstrike by the Nigerian military has killed seven children and wounded five others ‘by mistake’ in Niger, a local governor told AFP on Sunday.
The military was reportedly targeting ‘bandits’.
“There was a mistake with the Nigerian strikes on the border that resulted in victims on our territory in the village of Nachade” on Friday, said Chaibou Aboubacar, the governor of the Maradi region.
“The victims are 12 children, seven of them dead and five wounded.”
This is not the first time the Nigerian military would ‘mistakenly’ kill civilians.
On 17 January 2017, a Nigerian Air Force jet ‘mistakenly’ bombed an internally displaced persons (IDP) camp near the Cameroonian border in Rann, Borno State.
They had believed it was a Boko Haram encampment. The bombing left at least 115 people dead, including six Red Cross aid workers, and left more than 100 injured. The government apologised.
