BOKO Haram insurgents in North-Eastern Nigeria have sent out four times as many children suicide bombers this year than in 2016, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on Tuesday.
“Eighty-three children had been used as bombers since January 1, 2017, UNICEF said. Of those, 55 were girls, mostly under 15 years of age and 27 were boys. One was a baby strapped to a girl. 19 children were used last year,” UNICEF said.
The frequency of suicide bomb attacks in north-eastern Nigeria had increased in the past few weeks, killing no fewer than 170 people since June 1, according to a Reuters tally.
UNICEF, in a statement released on Tuesday, said it was “extremely concerned about an appalling increase in the cruel and calculated use of children, especially girls, as ‘human bombs’ in northeast Nigeria. The use of children in this way is an atrocity.”
Children who escape are often held by authorities or ostracised by their communities and families.
Nigerian aid worker, Rebecca Dali, who runs an agency that offers counselling for those who were abducted, said children as young as four-year-olds were among the 209 escapees her organisation had helped since 2015.
“They (former abductees) are highly traumatised,” Dali told Reuters on Monday, at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, where she received an award from the Sergio Vieira de Mello Foundation for her humanitarian work.
Her team, which includes former police officers, identified some returnees as having been trained as suicide bombers.
“Some 450,000 children are also at risk of life-threatening malnutrition by the end of the year in North-Eastern Nigeria,” UNICEF said.
In a related development, the Federal Government has pledged to ensure total de-radicalisation and rehabilitation of all ex-Boko Haram members before reintegrating them into the society, in line with international best practices.
The Chief of Defence Staff, General Abayomi Olonisakin, made the pledge on Tuesday, in Abuja, at a National Stakeholders’ Forum on Reintegration in the North-East, organised by the Kukah Centre.
Represented by Major-General Bamidele Shafa, Coordinator, ‘Operation Safe Corridor’ (OPSC), Olanishakin said the operation was designed by the government as part of efforts to find lasting solution to the lingering crisis in the North-East.
The Chief of Defence Staff explained that the ex-combatants would be made to go through a 16-week DRR programme involving advanced profiling, therapies, counseling, capturing on national ID card data and vocational training.
He said the OPSC, a joint multinational and multiagency humanitarian operation, involved security agencies, NGOs and MDAs, including NDLEA, NOA and NDE.
Olonisakin, however, said one major challenge for the programme was the notion in some quarters that the beneficiaries were being given undue favourable treatment at the expense of their victims.
He also said apathy to accept the ex-combatants back into the society after the DRR was another challenge.
The Chief of Defence Staff promised to continue to engage relevant stakeholders such as the Kukah Centre, community, traditional and religious leaders in finding lasting peace in the North-East.
Bishop, Sokoto Catholic Diocese and convener of the programme, Reverend Matthew Kukah, said the forum was meant to develop a framework on continuous community engagement, reintegration and transitional justice in the North-East.
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