No fewer than 11 Nigerian soldiers are currently being held by the military regime in Bobo-Dioulasso in the South West of Burkina Faso.
According to information shared on X by a security analyst, Bryant Grant, on Monday evening, the embattled soldiers were captured after their aircraft conducted an emergency landing while “violating AES airspace.”
The AES claims a Nigerian Air Force C-130 aircraft violated Burkinabe airspace and conducted an emergency landing in Bobo-Dioulasso.
The statement also warned that any unauthorised aircraft violating AES airspace will be neutralised.
This development comes a day after the Nigerian government deployed its military aircraft into Benin Republic on Sunday to quell an attempted coup.
As of the time of filing this report, the Nigerian military and the government have yet to react to the incident.
In the latest update, a security analyst has stated that the only reason the Nigerian Air Force C-130 was flying over South West Burkina Faso has been revealed.
Brant Philip, a Sahel-region security analyst known for tracking military movements across West Africa, said the Nigerian military aircraft was headed towards Senegal, adding that “nothing too suspicious.”
He wrote on his X page, “The only plausible reason why the Nigerian Air Force C-130 was flying over southwest Burkina Faso is that it was headed towards Senegal, nothing too suspicious.”
Giving possible reasons why the aircraft made an emergency landing, he said, “I initially guessed the NAF C-130 cargo plane was heading towards Tamale, Ghana, but it turned off its transponder, either intentionally or related to the emergency situation, and went ghost and continued northwest towards Burkina Faso where it was forced to land in an emergency.”