At least 792 people were killed in 882 security incidents recorded across Nigeria’s 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory in June 2026, while troops neutralised 274 insurgents during the period, according to a new report by SARI Global, a security intelligence and risk analysis firm.
The report also revealed that the Islamic State West Africa Province launched a coordinated campaign around the Monguno axis in northern Borno State, disrupting humanitarian operations and limiting aid access for hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons.
The findings are contained in SARI Global’s Nigeria Monthly Security Overview for June 2026, obtained by The Punch.
The report identifies the Monguno corridor, including Monguno, Cross Kauwa, Baga and Kukawa, as the country’s most critical humanitarian hotspot due to ISWAP’s strategy of nighttime raids on compounds and daytime attacks on aid-contracted vehicles along the Monguno-Gajiram road.
The monthly assessment is published on ReliefWeb, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs’ humanitarian information platform.
According to the report, 217 security incidents were recorded in the first week of June, while the second week (June 8–14) witnessed the highest level of violence, with 278 incidents and the month’s highest death toll.
It noted that June 8, 11, 13 and 14 were particularly violent as insurgent attacks, banditry and military operations occurred simultaneously across multiple regions.
“June opened at an elevated baseline and escalated through its first half before settling into a violent plateau.
“The first week recorded 217 incidents, and activity climbed sharply in the second week, which was the most intense of the month, with 278 incidents recorded and the peak fatality total.
“The tempo concentrated on a handful of days, 14, 8, 11 and 13 June, when insurgent attacks, banditry and heavy state operations coincided across multiple theatres.
“The arc of the month was therefore front-loaded, with the security apparatus containing but never reversing the early escalation, and lethality remaining high into the fourth week on the back of sustained rural attrition in the North-West,” the report stated.
SARI Global identified June 24 as the defining security incident of the month after ISWAP fighters infiltrated the 20 Units Housing area in Monguno at night, abducting an international NGO worker and a local security guard.
The organisation said the operation suggested the insurgents possessed detailed intelligence about the location of humanitarian workers and the security arrangements protecting them.
Five days later, militants operating illegal checkpoints along the Monguno-Gajiram road set ablaze two commercial trucks contracted by humanitarian organisations. The attack followed an earlier arson incident targeting aid cargo on June 18.
According to the report, the destruction of food supplies was intended to discourage commercial transporters from working with humanitarian agencies and to restrict the movement of essential relief materials into isolated IDP communities in northern Borno.
It added that ISWAP’s tactics had made humanitarian workers vulnerable at night while rendering supply routes unsafe during the day, effectively disrupting aid operations from outside secured areas.
The report warned that repeated attacks on aid convoys had already forced some commercial vendors to abandon the route, increasing the likelihood of delayed food distributions during the lean season.
“Running in parallel, ISWAP sustained a campaign of daytime supply-route interdiction along the Monguno to Gajiram road. Following an arson attack on June 18, fighters operating informal vehicle checkpoints torched two NGO-contracted commercial trucks on Jun 29, executing these operations in broad daylight and exploiting the limited presence of government forces.
“The deliberate destruction of food cargo is a calculated tactic to intimidate commercial vendors, deter them from engaging with humanitarian actors, and restrict the flow of essential commodities to the garrison towns of Monguno, Cross Kauwa, Baga and Kukawa,” SARI Global stated.
The report showed that government-affiliated forces initiated the highest number of incidents, accounting for 375 of the 882 recorded cases, largely driven by security operations, arrests, seizures and cordon-and-search activities.
Of the 792 confirmed deaths, 274 were linked to government-affiliated forces, while non-state armed groups were responsible for 337 fatalities. Civilians accounted for 64 deaths, criminal actors 30, unknown actors 86 and political actors one.
Although government forces recorded the highest number of incidents, non-state armed actors generated the greatest number of deaths despite initiating only 224 incidents. Their 337 fatalities represented 42.5 per cent of all confirmed deaths during the month.
The remaining 181 fatalities were attributed to unknown actors, civilians, criminal groups and political actors. Unknown actors alone accounted for 86 deaths across 54 incidents, highlighting the challenge of identifying perpetrators in remote areas of the North-East and North-West.
The report stressed that increased operational activity by security agencies did not necessarily indicate an improvement in the security situation.
“A busy security apparatus is not the same as an improving environment.”
Borno remained the worst-affected state, recording 109 incidents and 172 confirmed deaths, with violence concentrated around the Lake Chad Basin, Sambisa Forest, Gwoza and northern garrison towns.
Zamfara followed with 63 incidents, reflecting persistent banditry in the North-West. Plateau recorded 51 incidents, Katsina 44, Lagos 40, the FCT 36, Rivers 32, Oyo and Sokoto 31 each, while Niger recorded 29.
By category, criminality and law enforcement accounted for 369 incidents, armed conflict 297, civil unrest 110 and hazards 64.
Despite generating fewer incidents than law enforcement, armed conflict proved significantly deadlier, with non-state armed groups responsible for 337 fatalities from 224 incidents, compared to 274 deaths linked to 375 government-related incidents.
The report also expressed concern over rising attacks on educational institutions.
It cited the June 29 raid on Government Day Secondary School in Lassa, Askira/Uba Local Government Area, where ISWAP fighters abducted students and teachers in broad daylight.
SARI Global described the operation as both ideologically motivated and strategically designed to attract international attention while exposing weaknesses in state security.
It warned that repeated successful attacks on schools could encourage similar operations elsewhere, particularly in communities bordering the Sambisa axis.
“The failure to detect the group’s movement before the assault, and the absence of a rapid security response, reflect severe constraints in local surveillance, early-warning and community-alert mechanisms.
Each successful abduction of this kind emboldens replication,” it said, advising the government to “Treat all educational sites in peripheral LGAs near ISWAP strongholds as elevated-threat settings. Organisations with education or child-protection programming should reassess site security, the visibility of their association with targeted institutions, and movement timing, and should not rely on state protection frameworks that have repeatedly failed to detect or interdict these assaults”
The report also highlighted another incident on June 5 in Banki, Bama Local Government Area, where an international NGO staff member was assaulted during a food distribution exercise by someone excluded from the beneficiaries’ list.
SARI Global classified the incident as part of a growing trend of “beneficiary aggression” and warned that tensions surrounding aid distribution were likely to increase as food insecurity worsens during the lean season.
Across the North-West, 67 insurgent-style ambushes and explosive attacks were documented, including an improvised explosive device attack along the Bagega-Anka road in Zamfara on June 15.
The organisation observed that the spread of IED tactics from the North-East into Zamfara, Katsina, Sokoto and Kebbi indicated increasing collaboration and exchange of methods among armed groups, posing a growing threat to humanitarian supply routes.
In southern Nigeria, Lagos, Rivers and Oyo recorded relatively lower-fatality incidents, mainly involving crime, protests and road traffic accidents.
The report noted that the FCT’s 36 incidents were largely associated with civil unrest linked to preparations for the 2027 general elections.
It further identified Abuja as an emerging hotspot for politically motivated protests, marked by heavy deployment of security personnel and a low threshold for the use of force.
Looking ahead, SARI Global projected that humanitarian needs would continue to outpace response capacity in July.
The report warned that worsening food insecurity during the lean season would increase demand for humanitarian assistance while continued ISWAP attacks would further disrupt the supply chains needed to deliver relief.
SARI Global is a United States-registered security intelligence firm providing conflict monitoring, threat analysis and operational risk advisory services to international NGOs, United Nations agencies, embassies and corporate organisations operating in high-risk environments across Africa, the Middle East and Asia.
