The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Yusuf Tuggar, has confirmed that the Nigerian soldiers aboard an aircraft that made a forced landing in Burkina Faso are still trapped in the West African country.
Dependable NG reports that Tuggar made this disclosure during a press briefing held with his Beninese counterpart, Olushegun Bakari, on Thursday at the ECOWAS Commission in Abuja.
The incident was first reported on Monday when the Confederation of Sahel States (AES)—a breakaway regional union comprising Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger Republic—accused an aircraft carrying 11 Nigerian soldiers of violating Burkinabe airspace. The Mali junta leader, Assimi Goita, described the landing as an unfriendly act carried out in defiance of international law, while the AES had previously stated that it authorized its member states to neutralize any aircraft violating its airspace.
The development was noted to have occurred at the same time Nigerian troops carried out air strikes in Benin to help foil a coup attempt. Commenting on the situation, the Nigerian Air Force (NAF) confirmed the C-130 aircraft was on a ferry mission destined for Portugal when the forced landing occurred.
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