On Saturday, April 11, 2026, Nigerian Air Force jets flew over a weekly market in Jilli, a border town between Borno and Yobe states in northeast Nigeria. What happened next depends on who you ask. The military says they hit a terrorist enclave.

Survivors, local officials, and Amnesty International say the bombs fell on a market full of traders. Northeast Nigeria has been at war with itself since 2009, when Boko Haram first declared its violent campaign against the Nigerian state.  This is not the first time the Nigerian military has been accused of hitting civilians while targeting militants. In 2017, a similar airstrike on a displaced persons camp in Rann, Borno State, killed dozens of civilians and aid workers - an incident the military also initially denied. Think of Jilli Market the way you think of any busy Nigerian market on a Saturday - traders from surrounding communities, people buying food, children following their parents.

  The military’s position is that Boko Haram militants were using the market to collect levies from traders and stockpile supplies - and that the strike was based on credible intelligence. ” The death toll is still disputed - figures range from 56 to over 200. What is not disputed is that ordinary people who went to buy and sell at a market came home in body bags.  Northeast Nigeria has carried this war on its back for over 15 years. The people of Jilli did not choose to live between militants and fighter jets.