The Nigerian government on Tuesday said it has ordered an investigation into a weekend air strike on a crowded market that killed at least 56 people, many of them civilians.
The late Tuesday statement marked an about-face for the government, which had initially insisted it had successfully targeted jihadists in the Saturday strike on the village of Jilli, on the border of Yobe and Borno states.
Air strikes have killed hundreds of civilians in the country’s long-running war against jihadists, though human rights observers say the military often sweeps investigations under the rug.
“The Federal Government has ordered a full and independent investigation into the incident,” the country’s information minister, Mohammed Idris, said in a statement.
“This will review intelligence, targeting, and execution, and we will address any gaps and ensure accountability where needed.”
The air force has already announced its own review into the incident.
The Nigerian military had said it targeted a “logistics hub” located “near the abandoned village of Jilli”, on the Borno-Yobe state border, targeting militants from Islamic State West Africa Province .
But according to a conflict monitoring report prepared by the UN and seen by AFP, the strikes hit the crowded Jilli market and “mistakenly killed at least 56 people.” Local chief Lawan Zanna Nur saying that the dead and injured together numbered “around 200”.
– Change in government rhetoric –
Analysts have said that jihadists likely could have used the market to resupply, but Amnesty International Nigeria country director Isa Sanusi said that would not justify hitting a crowded civilian market.
Survivors interviewed by AFP said that the market had been operating normally before suddenly being struck. Video showed burnt bodies among the charred remnants of trading stalls.
The investigation marks a turning point from earlier government rhetoric dismissing civilian casualties.
Presidential spokesman Sunday Dare said Monday that the market in Jilli “has not functioned as a legitimate civilian marketplace in any meaningful sense.”
Defense Minister Christopher Musa, following the strike, said: “A friend of a thief is a thief. Anybody who is doing any trading or providing any support to them, we will find you together and we will deal with you like bandits, like terrorists.”
When civilians are killed by the military, they are often accused of harbouring jihadists an accusation that is often impossible to distinguish from simply living under jihadist control, as many Nigerians do across swathes of the northeastern countryside held by the militants.
Even as Idris said the government “extends its deepest condolences to the families of those affected”, he reiterated that the market “has long functioned as an insurgent-controlled enclave.”
The market “had been officially closed five years ago,” he said. “Civilians are urged to strictly observe security advisories, avoid restricted zones, and cooperate with security agencies.”
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