{"id":21606,"date":"2022-02-23T08:06:05","date_gmt":"2022-02-23T08:06:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ndarason.com\/?p=21606"},"modified":"2022-02-23T08:06:05","modified_gmt":"2022-02-23T08:06:05","slug":"investigation-as-children-killed-and-wounded-by-nigerian-air-strikes-over-territory-held-by-niger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/investigation-as-children-killed-and-wounded-by-nigerian-air-strikes-over-territory-held-by-niger\/","title":{"rendered":"Investigation as children killed and wounded by Nigerian air strikes over territory held by Niger"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Seven children playing in a yard were killed and five others were wounded in airstrikes by the Nigerian military on the village of Nachad\u00e9 in the Maradi region of Niger on Friday, February 18.<\/p>\n<p>The governor of Maradi, Cha\u00efbou Aboubacar, was alerted by defence and security forces. He confirmed that seven children had died and five were wounded, saying that four had were killed instantly and three died on the way to hospital.<\/p>\n<p>Witnesses said the Nigerian fighter plane first flew over Nachad\u00e9, near the village of Garin Kaoura, in the district of Madarounfa, which is a few kilometres from the Nigerian border and inhabited by people belonging to the ethnic group pehl.\u00a0When the plane flew over Nachad\u00e9 a second time, it dropped the bombs.<\/p>\n<p>It was believed that the Nigerians were pursuing armed men from a border village who had taken shelter in the Nachad\u00e9 village school.<\/p>\n<p>Aboubacar said: \u201cThe Nigerian army carried out airstrikes. I suspect armed bandits were the target.\u00a0These strikes fell on children on the Niger side, a few kilometres from the border.\u00a0Unfortunately, at the time, their parents were attending a ceremony and there were only children playing in the yard.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Nigeria has neither confirmed nor denied having launched the airstrikes.<\/p>\n<p>Major-General Jimmy Akpor, Nigeria\u2019s director of defence information, told Reuters: \u201cAs a matter of policy, the Nigerian Air Force does not make any incursions into areas outside Nigeria&#8217;s territorial boundaries. That&#8217;s our policy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>An investigation was under way, he said.<\/p>\n<p>Teams from <em>M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res<\/em>\u00a0(<em>MSF) \u2013 Doctors Without Borders \u2013 working <\/em>in the Madarounfa district hospital, treated the children.<\/p>\n<p>Dr Souley Harouna, the Niger representative of <em>MSF, said: <\/em><em>\u201c<\/em><strong>The children who came to us at the hospital arrived in an extremely serious condition.\u00a0Those are big injuries.\u00a0It\u2019s fractures, eviscerations, deep damage.\u201d<\/strong><em>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>MSF operates in the Maradi region, focusing its efforts on caring for children suffering from acute malnutrition and other early childhood illnesses.\u00a0Nearly 30,000 children were hospitalised in the four hospitals supported by MSF in the Maradi region in 2021.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Seven children playing in a yard were killed and five others were wounded in airstrikes by the Nigerian military on the village of Nachad\u00e9 in the Maradi region of Niger [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":21580,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-peace-and-security"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21606"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21606\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ndarason.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}