Dozens feared dead in air strike on village in northeastern Nigeria

Al Jazeera:

Dozens of people are feared dead after Nigerian military aircraft struck a village market while pursuing members of the rebel group Boko Haram in the country’s northeast, according to a local official and an international human rights group.

Amnesty International said in a post on social media on Sunday that more than 100 people had been killed and 35 others wounded in the attack the previous day.

Local chief Lawan Zanna Nur Geidam told the AFP news agency that “the total casualties, dead and injured, is around 200”.

The strike occurred on the Jilli village in Yobe state on the border with Borno state, the heartland of a long-running rebellion that has killed thousands of people and displaced millions more.

Nigeria’s Air Force said in a statement that it had killed Boko Haram fighters in an air strike on the Jilli axis in Borno state. It did not mention hitting a market.

The government of Yobe state later said in a statement that an air strike on the area had been conducted near a market that people were attending.

“Some people from Geidam LGA [local government area] bordering Gubio LGA in Borno state, who went to the Jilli weekly market, were affected,” said Brigadier General Dahiru Abdulsalam, military adviser to the Yobe state government. He gave no further details.

The Yobe State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) said it had received preliminary reports of an incident at the Jilli market “which reportedly resulted in casualties affecting some marketers” and activated the emergency response.