A Nigerian military drone strike accidentally killed 85 civilians during a Muslim religious celebration in the country on Sunday, as the country’s president called for an investigation.
Kaduna state governor Uba Sani said they had been mistakenly killed in a drone strike “targeting terrorists and bandits”.
Dozens were also hospitalised.
Danjuma Salisu, who survived the strike in a village at Tundun Biri, said residents heard the sound of an aeroplane approaching, and then a large blast.
Speaking from his hospital bed, where he was receiving treatment for hand and leg injuries, he said: “We couldn’t even run. It was a loud bang that left over 80 people dead and many of us injured.”
READ MORE: Zelensky’s tension with top military boss Zaluzhny as war effort risks collapse
The country’s forces frequently target the hideouts of Boko Haram jihadists and militants in the north of the country with aerial bombardment.
The army said it had been carrying out “a routine mission against terrorists but inadvertently affected members of the community”, but did not address how the incident occurred or how many were killed.
The Nigerian air force said in a statement it did not carry out any operations in Kaduna on Sunday night but that it is not the only one “operating combat armed drones” in the region.
The Kaduna State Emergency Management Agency said today that at least 85 people had lost their lives in the strike, providing the first official confirmation of the toll.
“The Northwest Zonal Office has received details from the local authorities that 85 dead bodies have so far been buried while search is still ongoing,” the agency said.
On Tuesday, Nigeria’s president Bola Tinubu ordered a thorough investigation into the incident.
Tinubu, who is at the Cop28 Climate Summit in Dubai, described the incident as “very unfortunate, disturbing, and painful”, his spokesman Ajuri Ngelale said in a statement.
He added that the President has ordered an investigation into what happened.
A man who witnessed the incident, told the BBC that two bombs were dropped.
“The aircraft dropped a bomb at the venue, it destroyed and killed our people including women and children,” he told the outlet.
“The second bomb was dropped on some of us who went to bring dead bodies of the victims of the first blast. We lost about 34 people in my family and we have 66 injured people in the hospital.”
Army officials and representatives from the Kaduna state government have met with village elders, and promised that those affected by the tragedy would be compensated.
