A 14-year-old secondary school student was killed in Maiduguri, Borno State, on Saturday, April 4, after being hit by a stray bullet inside her home. The bullet was allegedly fired by military personnel into the air during a wedding celebration at a nearby event centre. The girl, who lived in the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital (UMTH) quarters, was preparing for a family wedding and had just finished applying henna when she was struck. She was buried on Sunday morning at Maiduguri cemetery.
Amnesty International responded on its official X account, urging Nigerian authorities to investigate the military's reckless use of firearms. The organisation described the death as avoidable and demanded accountability. "The Nigerian authorities must investigate the reckless use of firearms by the military that killed a girl in Maiduguri, Borno State," it stated. A family friend confirmed the girl was not near the celebration and was indoors at the time. Amnesty International called for a transparent, impartial, and effective investigation, stressing that those responsible must be held accountable.
That a 14-year-old girl in Maiduguri could be killed inside her home by military gunfire during a wedding celebration points to a dangerous disconnect between security forces and civilian safety. The fact that the shooting occurred during a public event and involved stray bullets fired into the air suggests a troubling lack of operational discipline. If military personnel can discharge weapons so freely in a residential area, no home in Maiduguri is truly safe. This incident demands more than a probe—it requires a fundamental reassessment of how security operations are conducted in populated zones.
