Dozens of people in northeastern Nigeria died in airstrikes by the military, which claimed to be targeting jihadists, local residents, Amnesty International and a UN security report said on Sunday (April 12, 2026).

Civilians have been caught in the crossfire and killed in military air strikes aimed at militants, though the authorities sometimes dispute hitting civilians.

Africa’s most populous country has been fighting a jihadist insurgency for 17 years, since Boko Haram’s 2009 uprising, which has seen the emergence of powerful splinter groups including Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP).

The latest airstrikes on the village of Jilli occurred on Saturday, with the death tolls differing according to the sources.

A UN security seen by AFP stated that “4 Nigerian Air Force [NAF] fighter jets launched airstrikes that mistakenly killed at least 56 people and injured 14 others at the Jilli market... on April 11.”

“This occurred during a military operation targeting Boko Haram fighters who visited the market to conduct terrorism activities,” it said.

Amnesty International earlier said on X there were “more than 100 dead” and 35 people seriously wounded.

Local chief Lawan Zanna Nur meanwhile 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 (April 12, 2026).

“We are talking of dozens dead but it is difficult to give a specific toll,” he said.

A market committee member Bulama Mulima Abbas told AFP “36 bodies have been counted” after the airstrike “on the traders”.

Nigeria’s military said it had “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.

In a separate statement the air force said it had launched an investigation following reports that its airstrike “may have affected a local market in Jilli, resulting in civilian casualties”.

Nigeria facing international scrutiny

This strike is the latest in a series of such incidents in the north of the country.

In January 2025, a military airstrike killed at least 16 people in northwestern Zamfara state after an army jet mistook local vigilantes for criminal gangs.

A month earlier, a military jet killed 10 people when it hit villages while bombing jihadist positions in neighbouring Sokoto state.

In December 2023, a Nigerian military airstrike mistook a Muslim religious gathering for bandits in Kaduna state, killing at least 85 people.

And in January 2017, at least 112 people were killed when a fighter jet struck a camp housing 40,000 people displaced by jihadist violence near the border with Cameroon.

Jihadist violence had slowed from its peak in around 2015 but Boko Haram and ISWAP have recently increased attacks in northeastern Nigeria vying to establish a caliphate.

They have also ramped up their assaults on the military, overrunning bases, killing soldiers.

Last week an army general was the second top officer to be killed in five months.

Researchers have noted a rise in violence since last year.

More than 100 people in the north have been killed over the last 10 days by both jihadists and criminal gangs.

Northwestern parts are gripped by criminal gangs — locally called bandits — that raid villages and extort farmers and artisanal miners and kill.

Nigeria is facing international scrutiny over its security situation, including pressure from US President Donald Trump, who orders bombardments on Islamists militants last Christmas.

Early this year the United States began deploying 200 troops to Nigeria to provide technical and training support to soldiers in fighting jihadist groups.

In the face of pressure to tackle insecurity, Nigeria’s Justice Minister Lateef Fagbemi on Friday (April 10, 2026) said government had brought to court 508 cases and convicted nearly 386 people for links to jihadists groups terrorism in a mass trial.

The United States Senior Advisor for Arab and African Affairs, Massad Boulos, commended the Nigerian government for its “strong commitment to expediting trials addressing terrorism”.

“We welcome the convictions of 386 Islamist militants in cases that had previously faced significant delays in the courts,” he wrote on X.