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Nine months aft astir 88 guiltless civilians were ‘mistakenly’ killed successful a drone raid successful Tudun Biri, Kaduna State, the victims are yet to get justice.
On December 3, 2023, a drone onslaught by the Nigerian Armed Forces connected what was thought to beryllium a radical of bandits mistakenly deed Tudun Biri.
The onslaught occurred arsenic the villagers celebrated Mawlid, the commencement of the Prophet Muhammad.
The incidental drew wide outrage and calls for justice.
As days turned into weeks and weeks into months, promises of accountability from the military’s precocious bid became a mirage portion the victims’ families and Nigerians waited for answers.
The Nigerian Army initially denied work for the attacks but aboriginal admitted that 85 radical were killed.
The Nigeria bureau of Amnesty International, citing locals, said 120 radical were killed successful the attack. Most of the dormant were children.
The Army “expressed regret” for the bombing, saying successful a connection that troops “wrongly analysed and misinterpreted” activities.
A follow-up connection by Director of Defence Media Operations, Major General Edward Buba, described the decease of civilians arsenic a “needless tragedy”.
He explained that “terrorists often deliberately embed themselves wrong civilian colonisation centres for the civilian colonisation to carnivore the consequences of their actions”.
The Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant-General Taoreed Lagbaja, who visited Tundu Biri to commiserate with the people, tendered an unreserved apology and disclosed that helium had ordered a thorough enquiry into the incident.
In his reaction, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu ordered a “thorough and full-fledged probe into the incident” amid calls from antithetic quarters for punishment for those recovered culpable. The President besides declared that specified an incidental should ne'er reoccur.
Commenting connected the incidental and the attendant hold successful justice, a defence correspondent, Philip Nwosu, said a tribunal martial is indispensable for the persons involved, urging the subject to guarantee commensurate compensation to families who mislaid their loved ones.
Also, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, the National Coordinator of the Human Rights Writers Association (HURIWA), lamented the hold successful justness delivery.
Onwubiko said: “It demonstrates that the subject hierarchy is not acceptable to beryllium accountable due to the fact that if you admitted that the bombing of the villagers wasn’t intentional, wherefore hasn’t the national authorities instituted an autarkic judicial assemblage of investigators to ascertain precisely what led to the bombing of these guiltless villagers?
“The existent subject hierarchy is blameworthy of violating the well-known rules of engagement successful interior subject operations, and it is unacceptable that some the President and the National Assembly person conspired to expanse this atrocity nether the carpet.”
He added that the families should attack the International Criminal Court.
When contacted for an update connected the issue, Director, Defence Media Operation (DMO) Major General Edward Buba said: “The lawsuit is inactive ongoing astatine tribunal martial. I volition support you posted erstwhile the verdict is pronounced, please.”
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