Airstrikes by the Nigerian Air Force targeting terrorists’ positions in Borno State have killed an unspecified number of civilians on Sunday, 14 December.
A security source disclosed this to PREMIUM TIMES, saying the airstrikes were launched between 6 a.m. and 4 p.m. in the Mararaba area in Kukawa Local Government Area of Borno State.
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The incident occurred a few hours after the Nigerian Air Force (NAF) had vowed to protect civilian populations in its ongoing operations, which the United States supported.
The airstrikes reportedly killed fishermen, and commercial drivers gathered at a terminus junction between the road that leads to Daban Masara in Kukawa and the Badeiri in Marte LGA.
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The commercial drivers had gathered in the area to convey both the fish products and the fishermen to their destinations.
Confirming three casualties and destruction of 10 vehicles, the source said: “The number of civilians killed by the air force is uncertain. But a high number of civilians have been killed and vehicles destroyed.”
He added that some casualties had been conveyed to the General Hospital in Mungono for treatment.
A NAF officer, a pilot, confirmed the incident to our reporter, saying it was discussed at “today’s briefing” in a state in the North-west.
The Air Force has not issued a statement about the incident. PREMIUM TIMES will follow up and provide further updates as they emerge.
Lamentations
Sources familiar with the area and the officer who shared the news with us described the air mishaps as unfortunate, saying the operations were based on false intelligence.
The officer said “this particular area”, which the terrorists referred to as “daula,” has no Boko Haram settlements. He explained that the place is but an entry and exit transaction route predominantly used by Boko Haram’s second breakaway faction, Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP).
He said ISWAP has been operating in the area for some time, imposing a monthly tax of N40,000 on farmers and fishermen for access to the “daula.”
“The N40,000 is paid for a tally card,” he explained, adding that the card is being used as an entry ticket to the area. Apart from the tally fee, farmers and fishermen pay additional tax for their products,” he said.
Fishermen, he said, pay N5,000 [to the terrorists] per carton of fish.
Following the mishaps, the original targets are reportedly regrouping for further attacks.
“The airstrikes killed the civilians in the area, which is currently creating an atmosphere of disgust on the premise that, at the other end, terrorists are converging for attacks,” he said.
Advising the military to compensate the victims of the accidental airstrikes, the security source said the Air Force “should conduct ISR for possible airstrikes” on the terrorists.
A failed promise
In a statement posted on Facebook on Sunday, the Air Force, lauding the US capacity support, reaffirmed its priority on “civilian safety in operations.”
The Air Force added that it hosted a delegation of US experts on Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response (CHMR), a partner it said has bolstered its operations.
The Chief of the Air Staff (CAS), Sunday Aneke, emphasised that the CHMR’s collaboration with the Air Force forms a critical component of the NAF’s “operational ethics and professional evolution.”
But the air mishaps came less than 24 hours after the Air Force’s promise.
The outcome of the US raid?
Following President Trump’s threat to order military strikes on terror cells in Nigeria, this reporter, in his analysis, wrote that civilians in conflict zones could be mistakenly targeted since terrorists are embedded primarily in local communities where civilians suffering humanitarian crises are left with no choice but to stay.
The reported mishaps resulting from the ongoing operation, which was “supported by the US”, are a clear manifestation of that analysis.
The US aerial interventions in troubled countries were not without civilian casualties.
As revealed by the data obtained from Airwar, a not-for-profit transparency watchdog which tracks civilian casualties in conflict zones, there have been a total of 849 US air strikes which either killed or injured 265 civilians, including 90 children in Yemen, Iraq, Libya and Somalia, between 2005 and 2025.
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Data about US airstrikes on Afghanistan could not be found on Airwar’s civilian casualty archive dashboard. But an investigation by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism documented that about 117 civilians, including 70 children, were killed by US airstrikes in Afghanistan between 2018 and 2020.
The US-backed Nigerian Air Force has also followed in that direction, mistakenly killing civilians when it intended to target terrorists. Not less than 17 incidents of military accidental bombing of civilians have been documented since February 2014, when a military aircraft bombed a Borno village, Daglun.
In 2022, PREMIUM TIMES documented how the Air Force accidentally bombed six girls living in a terrorised village in Niger State, North-central Nigeria. Eight more people were targeted four months later in the same village.
More than 2,600 people, mostly unarmed civilians, have been killed in 248 air strike incidents outside the Northeastern terror-ravaged areas, which conflict experts refer to as BAY [Borno, Adamawa and Yobe], according to a Reuters analysis of the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), a US-based crisis monitoring group.
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