In a devastating miscalculation, a Nigerian Army jet mistakenly bombed Zakka village in Katsina State while pursuing armed gangs, resulting in the tragic loss of at least six civilians. Local witnesses reported that the fatal incident unfolded on Saturday in Safana district when the jet, tracking bandits responsible for a recent attack on a police base that killed two officers and a vigilante, circled the village before unleashing a bomb on a cluster of family huts. One resident, Muntari Sada, recounted the harrowing scene, where the bodies of six family members were gathered in bags for burial—a grim testament to the strike’s brutality.
Amnesty International has since raised the casualty count to at least 10 and called for an “impartial, transparent, and immediate investigation.” The military has yet to respond to these allegations. This calamity is the latest in a series of catastrophic airstrikes that have plagued northern Nigeria, where misdirected attacks have repeatedly decimated civilian communities—from a January strike in Zamfara State that killed 16 to a December assault in Kaduna State that claimed 85 lives, and even a deadly bombing of a displacement camp in Rann in 2017 that killed over 112 people.
