The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNCEF) has lamented an upsurge in the use of children as suicide bombers in the ongoing Boko Haram insurgency.
UNICEF, in a new report released on Wednesday, said the number of children used in ‘suicide’ attacks in the Lake Chad conflict has surged to 27 in the first quarter of 2017, compared to nine over the same period last year.
In the report, UNICEF’s Regional Director for West and Central Africa, Marie-Pierre Poirier, said: “In the first three months of this year, the number of children used in bomb attacks is nearly the same as the whole of last year. This is the worst possible use of children in conflict.”
The increase reflects an alarming tactic by the insurgents, according to the report titled: “Silent Shame: Bringing out the voices of children caught in the Lake Chad crisis”.
“So far, 117 children have been used to carry out bomb attacks in public places across Nigeria, Chad, Niger and Cameroun since 2014: four in 2014, 56 in 2015, 30 in 2016 and 27 only in the first three months of 2017. Girls have been used in the vast majority of these attacks.
“As a consequence, girls, boys and even infants have been viewed with increasing fear at markets and checkpoints, where they are thought to carry explosives,” the report said.
More to come…
