On Monday, two security sources and residents told AFP that at least 20 fishermen were killed accidentally in a Nigerian military strike on a terrorist base in northeast Nigeria.
According to the sources, a Nigerian fighter jet bombarded Kwatar Daban Masara on Lake Chad, which crosses Nigeria, Niger, Chad, and Cameroon. The IS-affiliated Islamic State West Africa Province has a stronghold in the area (ISWAP).
Officials claim another airstrike on a community in Nigeria's northeast, where the military is fighting a 12-year Islamist insurgency, killed nine civilians less than two weeks ago.
ISWAP recently overturned a ban on fishers entering its area, enabling them to enter for a fee to fish in the freshwater lake. As a result, a large number of fishermen who had previously abandoned the area returned.
"Any fisherman who goes to that area does so at his own risk because it is enemy territory and there is no way to tell them apart from the terrorists," stated one local intelligence source.
"According to the information we've gotten, the death toll is much higher than 20."
According to local fisherman Labo Sani, the aircraft strike targeted Kwatar Daban Masara at approximately 6 a.m. (0500 GMT), killing around 20 fishermen.
According to Sani from nearby Daban Masara, Kwatar Daban Masara is the "gateway to ISWAP's camps on several islands" and a supply route for the jihadists.
Sallau Arzika, another fisherman, said the fighter jet hit the area, killing "many of our people who were there for fishing."
"The initial death toll was around 20, but it has been rising as many of the injured have died," Arzika said.
Due to the region's inadequate connectivity, news of the occurrence took a long time to reach the public.
A message requesting confirmation or comment from a Nigerian air force spokeswoman was not immediately returned.
The strike was predicated on "credible information" of a gathering of ISWAP members in the village since Wednesday, according to an intelligence source who works with the anti-jihadist militia in the area.
Terrorists were amassing in Kwatar Daban Masara, according to aerial surveillance and reports from other sources, and it was evident they were plotting an attack, the source added.
'Preemptive Strike' is a term used to describe a preemptive strike.
Another security source claims that the area has been under monitoring for the past ten days after scores of suspected foreign fighters in multiple vehicles were transferred to camps inside the lake.
The security source explained, "It was a preemptive strike to destroy whatever plans the terrorists were hatching."
"You don't expect an innocent civilian to be there, and whoever is discovered is almost certainly a terrorist," he said.
According to officials, a Nigerian airstrike on a community in adjacent Yobe state on September 16 killed at least nine civilians.
At the time, the Nigerian air force said its fighter jet was following a group of jihadists in the region and that the incident was being investigated.
Nigeria's armed forces have been fighting a jihadist insurgency in the northeast since 2009, killing over 40,000 people and displacing almost two million people.
When the crisis spread to neighboring Niger, Chad, and Cameroon, a regional military alliance was formed to end the carnage.
A fighter jet struck a camp holding 40,000 people displaced by fighting in Rann near the Cameroon border in January 2017, killing at least 112 people.
In a six-month study, the Nigerian military blamed the bombardment on a "lack of appropriate marking of the area."
At least 13 people were killed in July 2019 when a Nigerian fighter jet targeted fleeing jihadists after attacking a military base in Gajiganna hamlet, 50 kilometers from Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state.
