Every war the Nigerian Air Force has fought
Nigerian air strikes have repeatedly killed civilians, from the bombing of Biafran markets, schools and hospitals to the camp for displaced people at Rann in January 2017, where MSF counted about 90 dead and the ISS later cited 112; each toll is given with the source that reports it, and insurgent fighters killed are the air force’s own claims and are not repeated. The December 2023 strike at Tudun Biri was by a Nigerian Army drone, not the air force. In Benin in December 2025, Wikipedia’s summary of media reports says President Talon asked for Nigeria’s help, and Benin’s government said its own forces had foiled the coup. Where a consolidated sortie or loss figure exists in the official record it is given here; where accounts disagree, the range is shown and the disagreement named. Blank cells are blank because no figure could be verified, not because the fighting was small.
From the Biafran war of 1967 to the strikes on coup plotters in Benin in December 2025.
| Conflict | Jaren | Tegen | Hoofdvliegtuig | Uitvallen | Vliegtuig verloren | |
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| The Nigerian Civil Warthe Biafran warNigerian Air Force | 1967–1970 | Biafra | MiG-17, MiG-15UTI, Il-28en nog 1 | |||
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Bombed and strafed Biafran forces and towns, attacked the Uli airstrip and the relief airlift, and supported the federal ground offensives. Nigeria had no combat aircraft when the war began on 6 July 1967. After Biafran raids, Soviet MiG-17s reached Kano via Egypt from 13 August 1967, with Il-28 bombers based at Calabar and Port Harcourt. Wikipedia says about 200 Soviet technicians came with the MiGs and that Egyptian pilots flew them. Bombing of Biafran markets, schools and hospitals was widely reported abroad and, in Wikipedia’s summary, helped win Biafra international sympathy. By spring 1969 European contract pilots had replaced the Egyptians. Biafra fought back with a small mercenary-flown force of B-25s, B-26s and Swedish MFI-9B light aircraft led by Carl Gustaf von Rosen and others, and depended on a night airlift into Uli that Nigerian aircraft attacked. Resultaat Federal victory; Biafra surrendered on 15 January 1970. The number of MiG-17s (8 to 17) and the identity of foreign pilots rest on secondary sources cited by Wikipedia; casualty figures from the bombing of civilians are not given here because no reliable count was found.
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| ECOMOG in Liberiathe First Liberian Civil WarNigerian Air Force | 1990–1998 | National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) | Alpha Jet, C-130H | 0 | ||
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Close air support, interdiction and anti-shipping strikes against Charles Taylor’s NPFL for the ECOWAS force; airlift. Nigeria provided about 7,000 of ECOMOG’s 11,000 troops and more than 70 per cent of its cost. Four Alpha Jets deployed in 1990 and hit Charles Taylor’s headquarters, convoys, shipping and gun positions at the airport; the New York Times judged that they gave ECOMOG a decisive firepower advantage, as quoted by Wikipedia. In 1992 six aircraft under ECOMOG command flew about 3,000 missions, including bridge denial and night raids. Resultaat ECOMOG completed its withdrawal from Liberia by the end of 1998. Sortie figures come from Wikipedia’s Alpha Jet article and were not checked against a primary source.
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| ECOMOG in Sierra Leonethe Sierra Leone Civil WarNigerian Air Force | 1997–2000 | Armed Forces Revolutionary Council and Revolutionary United Front (RUF) | Alpha Jet | |||
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Air strikes for the Nigerian-led ECOMOG force against the AFRC junta and the RUF, including the defence of Freetown in January 1999. ECOMOG deployed to Sierra Leone in 1997. In 1998 ECOMOG aircraft forced down a helicopter carrying the former junta leader Johnny Paul Koroma, per Wikipedia. Human Rights Watch’s July 1999 report records that during the rebel attack on Freetown in January 1999 ECOMOG jets bombed a column of civilians whom rebels were using as human shields, and that ECOMOG’s commander said troops had been told to “kill everything” if human shields were used again. Resultaat Not detailed in the sources checked. End year approximate and not confirmed in the sources checked. HRW does not name the aircraft type; the Alpha Jet attribution follows the air force’s known deployment. Casualties of the Freetown bombing are not given by HRW in the passage checked.
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| Counter-insurgency in the north-eastBoko Haram and ISWAP; Operation Hadin KaiNigerian Air Force | 2013– | Boko Haram (JAS) and Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) | Alpha Jet, F-7NI, A-29 Super Tucanoen nog 7 meer | |||
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Air strikes, close air support, surveillance and airlift against Boko Haram (JAS) and Islamic State West Africa Province. Air power became central after 2013, and the authors of a 2025 study in The Conversation credit it with locating and destroying many insurgent camps. It also produced the service’s worst mistake. On 17 January 2017 an air force aircraft bombed the camp for displaced people at Rann, Borno, during an aid distribution: MSF counted about 90 dead and said the toll might reach 170; the ISS later cited 112 killed and 97 injured. The military’s inquiry blamed the lack of markings on the camp. The ISS also lists 17 killed at Sakotoku, Damboa, on 13 April 2020. The air force now says civilian harm mitigation is embedded in its doctrine. Resultaat Wordt vervolgd. Insurgent fighters killed are the air force’s own claims and are not repeated here. Civilian tolls differ by source and are attributed.
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| Operations against armed gangs in the north-west and north-central statesthe banditry crisisNigerian Air Force | 2021– | Armed bandit groups and Lakurawa | Alpha Jet, A-29 Super Tucano, Mi-35en nog 1 | 1 | ||
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Air strikes and surveillance against armed criminal gangs (“bandits”) and, from 2024, the Lakurawa group. Mistaken strikes have followed the air war west. ISS lists six children killed at Kurebe, Niger State, in April 2022 and a death at Kunkuna, Katsina, in July 2022, and 37 killed in Doma, Nasarawa, in January 2023. Wikipedia’s list, citing media and SBM Intelligence, adds more than 60 at Daban Masara in 2021, 64 at Mutumji in December 2022, more than ten in Sokoto in December 2024 and 16 in Zamfara in January 2025, and SBM’s total of over 400 civilians killed in such incidents between 2017 and 2025. The December 2023 strike at Tudun Biri, Kaduna, which ISS reports caused 120 casualties, was by a Nigerian Army drone, not the air force. Resultaat Wordt vervolgd. Start year is that of the earliest incident in the sources checked; operations began earlier. Several incident figures come from Wikipedia’s summary of media reports and were not checked against the original reports; the air force has not published its own tally.
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| ECOWAS intervention in the GambiaECOMIGNigerian Air Force | 2017 | Forces loyal to Yahya Jammeh | 0 | |||
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Air support for the ECOWAS force that entered the Gambia to install President Adama Barrow. ECOWAS forces entered the Gambia on 19 January 2017 at the request of Adama Barrow, sworn in that day at the Gambian embassy in Dakar. Nigeria contributed air and sea support. Jammeh left two days later without a fight in the capital. defenceWeb’s 2025 profile lists about 200 Nigerian personnel still with ECOMIG. Resultaat Jammeh left the country on 21 January 2017; Barrow returned on 26 January.
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| Intervention against the Benin coup attempt7 December 2025Nigerian Air Force | 2025 | Military Committee for Refoundation (coup plotters) | A-29 Super Tucano | 0 | ||
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Air strikes and armed patrols over Cotonou against the soldiers who had announced President Patrice Talon’s removal. On 7 December 2025 soldiers calling themselves the Military Committee for Refoundation announced on state television that President Talon had been removed. President Tinubu ordered Nigerian fighter jets to “take over the airspace to help dislodge the coup plotters from the National TV and a military camp”, and defenceWeb reported that Nigerian Air Force aircraft carried out strikes in Benin that day. Tinubu said the forces “acted within the ambit of the ECOWAS Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance”. Benin’s government said its own forces had foiled the attempt. ECOWAS then deployed troops from Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana. Resultaat The coup attempt failed; Benin reported 14 arrests.
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Niets komt overeen met die zoekopdracht.
Elk cijfer, gecontroleerd
- Nigerian Air Force: HistoryIdea born in 1961 after foreign air forces airlifted Nigerian troops for the Congo and Tanganyika; Act of Parliament 1964; recruiting from June 1962; cadets trained in Ethiopia, Canada and India; German technical assistance from 1963; MiG-15 and MiG-17 acquired in the civil war; expansion 1981–1990; Decree 105 of 23 August 1994; six commands; F-7NI, ATR 42 MPA and Agusta helicopters around 2010; peacekeeping in Lebanon (1978–82), Chad (1983), Yugoslavia, Somalia, Rwanda, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
- Nigerian Air Force: NAF, Amnesty International strengthen engagement on civilian protection (September 2026)AVM Edward Gabkwet: civilian harm mitigation “is embedded in NAF doctrine and incorporated into the planning and conduct of air operations”.
- defenceWeb: African Military Profile: Nigeria (Armand Liebenberg, 5 December 2025, updated 28 May 2026)Armed forces 135,000 of which air force 15,000; 2024 defence budget N1,647.9 billion (about US$1.10 billion, 0.70 per cent of GDP); air force inventory incl. Mi-24/35 26, T129 2 (+4), C-130 4, CH-3 2, CH-4 4, Wing Loong II 2; command structure; “decades of neglect, which saw much of the force grounded”.
- defenceWeb: 10 000 flight hours milestone for Nigerian Super Tucanos (August 2024)10,000 hours in about three years, over 8,500 in operational sorties, “without any major incident”.
- The Conversation via defenceWeb: West Africa is the world’s new epicentre for terrorism – Nigeria is expanding its air force in response (Oyewole, Okpaleke and Ojewale, 6 August 2025)18,000 personnel and 61 combat-capable aircraft in 2024; A-29s at US$496 million; US$618 million loan approved October 2024; criticism over accidental strikes.
- defenceWeb: Another Nigerian F-7Ni lost in a crash (17 July 2023)FT-7NI lost at Makurdi on 14 July 2023, both pilots ejected; earlier losses 2011 (two), 2012, 2015 and a 2018 mid-air collision (two aircraft, one pilot killed); 12 F-7NI and 3 FT-7NI delivered 2009–2010; a further FT-7NI donated by Chengdu.
- defenceWeb (Reuters): Bandit fire brings down Nigeria air force jet, pilot survives (20 July 2021)Alpha Jet lost on 18 July 2021 on the Zamfara–Kaduna border; pilot Abayomi Dairo ejected; NAF: “came under intense enemy fire which led to its crash”; Reuters could not verify.
- defenceWeb (Reuters): Nigerian refugee camp air strike death toll rises (23 January 2017)MSF: around 90 dead, possibly up to 170 according to residents and community leaders; aircraft circled twice and dropped two bombs during an aid distribution; NAF called it accidental.
- defenceWeb (Reuters): Nigerian refugee camp hit by air strike was not marked on maps – military (21 July 2017)Military inquiry: “The main reason that caused the unfortunate air strike near the IDP camp at Rann, was lack of appropriate marking of the area.”
- ISS Africa via defenceWeb: Nigeria’s military mistakes cost the country its civilians (13 December 2023)Tudun Biri, 5 December 2023, Nigerian Army drone, 120 casualties reported; Rann 112 killed and 97 injured; other NAF strikes 2020–2022; Punch tally of over 425 killed by accidental bombings 2017–2023.
- defenceWeb: Weekend Benin coup attempt fails; ECOWAS deploys troops (8 December 2025)Nigerian Air Force aircraft struck in Benin on 7 December 2025; statements by President Tinubu and Benin’s interior minister.
- Human Rights Watch: Sierra Leone: Getting Away with Murder, Mutilation, Rape (July 1999), section on ECOMOG abusesECOMOG jets bombed a column of civilians used as human shields in Freetown in January 1999; ECOMOG commander’s response.
Cijfers geverifieerd op 1 oktober 2026. Back to the Nigerian Air Force.