YOBE STATE — A Nigerian Air Force strike targeting jihadi rebels hit a local market in Yobe state in northeastern Nigeria on Saturday, killing over 100 civilians, including children. Many others were injured in the strike, which Nigerian military officials described as a misfire without providing further details.

Amnesty International, citing survivors, said at least 100 people were killed in the airstrike in a village near the border with Borno state. The organization called for an independent investigation into the incident. Amnesty International said the military is fond of labeling civilian casualties as bandits.

Isa Sanusi, Nigeria Director of Amnesty International, said, "We have their pictures and they include children." Sanusi also said, "We spoke with the person in charge of casualties, and we spoke with the victims."

A worker at Geidam General Hospital, speaking anonymously because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said at least 23 people injured in the incident were receiving treatment at the facility. The Yobe State Emergency Management Agency acknowledged in a statement that an incident had occurred resulting in casualties affecting some marketers and said it had dispatched response teams to the area.

The Yobe State Government confirmed in a statement that a Nigerian military strike was targeting a stronghold of the Boko Haram jihadi group in the area. The government said some people who went to the Jilli weekly market were affected. The large remote market near the Borno-Yobe border is often used by Boko Haram jihadis to buy food supplies.

Nigeria's military said in a statement that it conducted a successful strike on a terrorist enclave and logistics hub belonging to jihadis in the area, killing scores of jihadis as they rode on motorcycles. The military said motorcycles remain prohibited in conflict hot spots and that any such movements in restricted areas are treated with the utmost seriousness.

Abdulmumin Bulama, a member of a civilian security group working with the Nigerian military in the northeast, said there was intelligence that Boko Haram terrorists had gathered close to the market and were planning an attack on nearby communities. "The intel was shared and the Air Force jet acted based on the credible information," Bulama said.

At least 500 civilians have died since 2017 in similar misfires. Such misfires are common in Nigeria, where the military often conducts air raids to battle armed groups that control forest enclaves. Nigeria is battling a security crisis in the north, where a decade-long insurgency and several armed groups that kidnap for ransom have persisted. Boko Haram and its breakaway faction known as Islamic State West Africa Province are among the most prominent Islamic militant groups in the region, with Borno state serving as the epicenter of the insurgency.