Three suicide bombings by girls aged
as young as 10 suggest that Nigeria's Boko Haram has employed a new
tactic of forcing abducted children to blow themselves up, according to
experts.
The Islamist sect has
been carrying out almost daily killings and kidnappings across northeast
Nigeria in a campaign of violence now in its sixth year. Deadly attacks
on Saturday and Sunday were carried out by three young female suicide bombers.
These came just days after a week-long killing spree by Boko Haram, in which the group torched at least 10 towns leaving around 2,000 people unaccounted for. Secretary of State John Kerry on Thursday called the attack "a crime against humanity."
It is not clear if the
girls were coerced or were even aware they were strapped with
explosives, which may have been detonated remotely. But experts say that
Boko Haram appears to be using the children it kidnaps — such as the
276 Chibok girls who sparked the #BringBackOurGirls social media campaign — and using them as a readily available supply of suicide bombers.
"Using children to carry
and detonate explosives is not a new tactic for Boko Haram but it is an
intensification. Boko Haram has been abducting and conscripting
children and young men and women for a long period for various purposes -
they will be seen by the movement as expendable resources," said
Elizabeth Donnelly, assistant head of the Africa program at London's Chatham House think tank.
Boko Haram roughly
translates to "Western education is sinful." The group aims to create
its own state based on strict Islamic law.
It has used female
suicide bombers before, notably in a spate of attacks last July in
central northern city of Kano. But Peter Pham, director of the Africa
Center at the Atlantic Council,
said the recent use of young girls represented a "ratcheting up" of the
group's bombing campaign, "first to women and now to children."
"Young women who are
abducted, it has been suggested that they might be used as wives. But
it's certainly possible they could be used as bombers," he added.
"These girls just do not matter to them ... They are disposable bodies"
Increasing
violence in Nigeria's northeast means reporting from the region has
become next to impossible. Western journalists rarely get closer than
the capital Abuja, 400 miles away.
But a reporter in the
city of Maiduguri, the site of Saturday's bombing, characterized the use
of girls by Boko Haram as "clearly a change in tactics."
"Getting the girls?
Extremely simple," the journalist told NBC News, asking not to be named
because of restrictions imposed by his employer. "Many towns and
villages have been raided, and married women, young girls and even
children below 10 have been abducted. These are the suicide bombers."
Eyewitnesses told
Reuters news agency and local newspapers that the bomb in Maiduguri was
strapped to a girl who appeared as young as 10 years old. Local Senator
Ahmed Zanna told NBC News around 20 people were killed. The following
day, two girls described as appearing the same age wore suicide vests
that detonated in the town of Potiskum killing three people.
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned what he called a "depraved act."
According to Barrister
Zannah Mustapha, a local philanthropist who set up a school for orphans
in Maiduguri, impoverished children in the area are particularly
vulnerable to Boko Haram.
"For a young girl to use
a suicide bomb, some sort of indoctrination has gone on," he told NBC
News via telephone. Maidurguri has been inundated by people fleeing Boko
Haram from other parts of the state. Mustapha said there were currently
2,000 orphans who had applied to attend his school, The Future Prowess
Islamic Foundation, which has a current capacity of 420 children.
"These are potential targets for Boko Haram to indoctrinate," he said. "If we cannot accommodate them, where can they go?"
Boko Haram was involved in 10,000 violent deaths last year, according to figures from the Washington, D.C.-based Council on Foreign Relations think tank.
On Thursday, Kerry spoke
about last week's incident in which Boko Haram is feared to have killed
as many as 2,000 people in and around the fishing town of Baga. "It's
an enormously horrendous slaughter of innocent people," he said. "Boko
Haram continue to present a serious threat not just to Nigeria and the
region but to all of our values."
The number of young
girls kidnapped by Boko Haram is near-impossible to estimate. The
group's most high-profile kidnapping came in April last year, which it
took 276 girls from a school in Chibok.
Donnelly said abducted girls have provided the group with a resource of bombers it sees as completely expendable.
"I think it's because
these girls just do not matter to them," she said. "They are disposable
bodies ... How do you fight this? It is hard to identify someone as a
Boko Haram fighter when they are using children."
Source- Reuters
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