Nigeria’s 17-year battle against Islamic extremists in the northeast claimed more than 100 civilian lives on April 11, 2026, when military aircraft bombed Jilli market in what officials described as a hunt for Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province militants operating along the Borno-Yobe state border.
Local chief Lawan Zanna Nur Geidam told AFP that approximately 200 people were killed or wounded in the strike. Amnesty International verified the civilian death toll exceeded 100, with children among the victims, while hospitals struggled to care for dozens of critically wounded survivors transported to facilities in Geidam and Maiduguri.
The military defended its actions by characterizing the target as a terrorist logistics hub in the abandoned village of Jilli, locally called “Kasu Daulaye” — translated as “the terrorists’ market.” Officials said the location had been identified as a corridor for Islamic State West Africa Province fighters. Borno State Governor Babagana Zulum confirmed that authorities had closed both Jilli and the nearby Gazabure market five years earlier because insurgents controlled the area.
Ahmed Ali, a 43-year-old market trader who sells medical consumables, described the chaos as bombs struck. “I became so scared and attempted to run away, but a friend dragged me and we all lay on the ground,” he told Reuters from the hospital. Another survivor shopping for animals told the news agency that roughly 30 people near him collapsed after being hit.
Security sources admitted the market had become a supply point for Boko Haram fighters seeking food, making it difficult to separate civilians from insurgents. Abdulmumin Bulama, a member of a civilian security group working with the military, said intelligence indicated terrorists had gathered near the market and were planning attacks on nearby communities.
Operating under Operation HADIN KAI, the Air Force acknowledged what happened and sent its Civilian Harm Accident and Investigation Cell to the site for a fact-finding mission. Military spokesmen said they had executed what they described as a precision strike on a known terrorist location but initially made no public reference to civilian deaths.
At least eight additional victims died Sunday after being transported to medical facilities. A worker at Geidam General Hospital, speaking on condition of anonymity, said at least 23 people injured in the incident were receiving treatment. The region’s hospitals, already overwhelmed by years of insurgency-related casualties, faced an influx of patients with massive trauma, burns, and shrapnel wounds.
Isa Sanusi, Amnesty International’s Nigeria director, confirmed that children were among the dead. “We have their pictures and they include children,” Sanusi told the Associated Press. The human rights organization condemned the strike as unlawful and called for an independent investigation, adding that the military is “fond of” labeling civilian casualties as bandits or terrorists.
The military said it conducted a carefully coordinated strike on a terrorist enclave, claiming scores of terrorists were killed as they rode motorcycles in the restricted area. The Yobe state government confirmed that the airstrike had targeted a Boko Haram stronghold and acknowledged that “some people…who went to the Jilli weekly market were affected.” Brigadier General Dahiru Abdulsalam, military adviser to the Yobe state government, provided no further details on the death toll. The Yobe State Emergency Management Agency dispatched response teams to assist with casualty evacuation and treatment.
Such deadly misfires have become grimly routine in northeastern Nigeria, where the military frequently conducts air raids against armed groups controlling remote forest enclaves. According to an Associated Press tally, such strikes have killed at least 500 civilians since 2017—a toll that security analysts attribute to persistent failures in intelligence gathering and insufficient coordination between ground troops and air assets.
In December 2023, a military airstrike mistook a Muslim religious gathering for bandits in Kaduna state, killing at least 85 people. On March 16, 2026, strikes on crowded areas in Borno State, including a market and the gate of the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital, killed at least 23 people and injured 108 others. In January 2017, at least 112 people died when a fighter jet struck a camp housing 40,000 displaced people near the Cameroon border.
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu convened a security meeting with service chiefs and the Inspector-General of Police at the Presidential Villa in Abuja following the incident. U.S. Africa Command spokeswoman Col. Rebecca Heyse said American forces played no role in the strike, noting that U.S. troops were “not involved in the planning, intelligence sharing or execution of this operation.”
The jihadist insurgency has raged for more than 17 years since Boko Haram’s 2009 uprising, which spawned powerful splinter groups, including Islamic State West Africa Province. The conflict has killed tens of thousands and displaced millions, creating a humanitarian crisis that continues to challenge Nigerian security forces and international aid organizations.
The Nigerian Air Force has promised a thorough investigation, but Amnesty International and other human rights groups demand an independent inquiry into what went wrong at Jilli market. The death toll may rise as some of the seriously wounded remain in critical condition. Local officials continue to compile lists of the dead and missing, while survivors grapple with injuries and the loss of family members in a region already devastated by years of conflict and instability.