Niger State Government Insists No Children Killed In Air Force Raid
The Niger state government has now released a statement, a week after residents claimed a NAF aircraft bombed houses and killed children in Kurebe community.
The Niger State Government, North-central Nigeria on Friday April 22, 2022, dismissed the claim by Coalition of Shiroro Associations (COSA) that bombs by the Nigerian Air Force killed six children in Kurebe community during a military operation on terrorists.
In the statement which is coming more than a week after the incident, Emmanuel Umar, the state’s Commissioner for Local Government, Chieftaincy Affairs, and Internal Security, said there was no residence where the Air Force carried out the raid.
Spokesperson of Coalition of (COSA), Salis Sabo, had said in a statement obtained by HumAgle that the incident occurred on Wednesday, April 13, 2022.
According to Sabo, the children were coming back from a motorised borehole within the Kurebe community, where they went to fetch water, when they were killed by a bomb dropped from a NAF aircraft.
But the commissioner via the statement said “to the best knowledge of the state government, there are no civilian residence in these areas for sometimes now due to the infiltrations and activities of the terrorists which forced the locals to seek shelter as IDPs in other parts of the state.”
He said the government appreciated the ongoing “intensified military operations in the bandits affected states”.
“The efforts of the joint operations have yielded a lot of success which the state is happy as many bandits/terrorist have already been eliminated in the affected LGAs,” he said. “While the State Government appreciates the victories recorded during these operations, it also looks forward to a sustained operation to eradicate bandits from the state.
“These efforts will no doubt restore confidence in the communities within the area, which will enable them to return back to their farms.”
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