Nine dead, many injured as Army fighter jet accidentally bombs Buhari village

Tragedy struck in the fight against the terror group, Boko Haram, on Wednesday, when a fighter jet involved in the counter-insurgency operation in the North-East bombed a village in Buhari community in Yunusari Local Government Area of Yobe State, killing at least 9 villagers.

Several other villagers sustained injuries and are now receiving medical attention at a government health facility in Geidam.

Yunusari is in the Northern part of Yobe State, sharing an international border with the Niger Republic.

According to a resident of Damaturu, Saleh Ibrahim, the jet shelled the village in the early hours of Wednesday when the villagers were preparing to go to the weekly market in Geidam, a neighbouring local government, 200 km from Damaturu.

“The villagers were already set to go to the market at Geidam early in the morning when, suddenly, the jet appeared from nowhere and started shelling the village.

“Instantly, three people died. The sound of gunshots scared the villagers and they ran for safety, but others sustained injuries as a result.

“Some of the injured were attempting to tend to the dead people when they also got hit by bullets from the jet.

“As of 5 pm on Wednesday, the number of dead people had risen to nine, while over 30 people sustained injuries and are receiving treatment at Geidam General Hospital,” Ibrahim disclosed.

He added, “Buhari village is in Yunusari local government, but Buhari village is closer to Geidam and the entire Yunusari local government doesn’t have facilities to attend to the injured victims.”

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According to the source, Yunusari local government has a strong presence of Boko Haram terrorists and has Boko Haram camps from where the insurgents often launch attacks against neighbouring Geidam local government and make a retreat back to Yunusari.

He said both Yunusari and Geidam share a border with Niger Republic.

The acting spokesman of the Nigerian Army, Sector 2 Operation Hadin Kai in Damaturu, Lt. Kennedy Anyanwu, said that they were “yet to receive any situation report about the incident.”

The Nigerian Air Force has also denied reports linking one of its fighter jets to the bombing.

In a statement on Wednesday, the NAF spokesman, Air Commodore Edward Gabkwet, explained that the agency last conducted a mission in Yobe State earlier in the month.

“NAF last conducted a mission into Yobe State (not Yunusari LGA) on 5 September 2021 and it was an armed Recce. No bomb or missile was even expended,” he said

Villagers in the past have reported some civilian casualties in near-daily bombardments in northeastern Nigeria.

Recently, a military jet that came to repel an attack by Boko Haram dropped a bomb that landed in a compound where civilians were having child christening.

A fighter jet also on a mission against Boko Haram extremists in April 2021 mistakenly bombed men of the Nigerian Army, killing over 20 officers.

The soldiers who were reinforced from Ngandu village were said to be on their way to Mainok, headquarters of the Kaga Local Government Area of Borno state which was under attack by militants from the Islamic State-backed faction of Boko Haram, the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), formerly known as Jamā’at Ahl as-Sunnah lid-Da’wah wa’l-Jihād.

Some of the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram in 2014 and freed last year also said three of their classmates were killed by Air Force bombardments.

In June 2021, an offensive aerial bombardment the NAF Alpha jet carried out around Genu town in Niger State resulted in the killing of some wedding guests.

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Ilesanmi Adekanbi

Ilesanmi Adekanbi, writers and loves writing the story of politics, He is a movie addict. Adekanbi is a Senior Content Creator at Newsflash Nigeria contact me on email: [email protected]

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