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MAIDUGURI: Scores of people died in airstrikes in Nigeria’s northeastern Yobe state as military aircraft hunted fighters, local residents and Amnesty International said on Sunday.
Africa’s most populous country has been fighting a religious insurgency for 17 years, since Boko Haram’s 2009 uprising, which has seen the emergence of powerful splinter groups including the militant Islamic State group-West Africa Province (ISWAP).
In recent years, civilians have been caught in the crossfire and killed in military air strikes targeting the militants, though the authorities sometimes dispute hitting civilians.
The latest airstrikes on the village of Jilli occurred on Saturday, the death tolls differing according to the sources.
Amnesty International says over 100 people have been killed and 35 seriously wounded in attacks
Amnesty International said on X there were “more than 100 dead” and 35 people seriously wounded.
Local chief Lawan Zanna Nur however said “the total casualties, dead and injured, is around 200.” Many were taken to hospitals in nearby Geidam and Maiduguri, he added, where at least eight more of the wounded had died on Sunday.
“We are talking of dozens dead but it is difficult to give a specific toll,” he said.
Nigeria’s military said in a statement it had struck a location in Jilli, “long identified as a major terrorist movement corridor and convergence point for IS-West Africa Province terrorists and their collaborators”.
Calling it “a carefully, well coordinated planned and intelligence-driven operation”, the military said in a statement that it “successfully conducted a precision air strike on a known terrorist enclave and logistics hub located near the abandoned village of Jilli”.
It said “scores of terrorists” were killed in the strike, but did not mention any civilian casualties.
A market committee member Bulama Mulima Abbas said “36 bodies have been counted” after the airstrike “on the traders”.
An intelligence source said that Jilli market “is wholly controlled by Boko Haram who provides security and collect tax from traders.” Violence had slowed from its peak in around 2015 but Boko Haram and ISWAP have recently stepped up attacks in northeastern Nigeria in their campaign to establish a caliphate.
The insurgency which started in 2009 has killed more than 40,000 and displaced around two million, according to the United Nations.
Early this year the United States began deploying 200 troops to Nigeria to provide technical and training support to soldiers in fighting groups.
Nigeria’s Attorney General and Minister of justice, Lateef Fagbemi on Friday said nearly 400 people had been convicted for terrorism and terrorism financing in latest series of mass trials.
“In total, we brought about 508 cases. Of this 508, we were able to secure 386 convictions, 8 discharges, 2 acquittals and 112 adjourned to the next phase,” he told reporters.
Published in Dawn, April 13th, 2026
