Boko Haram suicide attacks creating suspicion of children, says UN agency.
Unicef concerned that children increasingly perceived as potential threats, after 27 suicide attacks this year
An increase in suicide bombings by girls and women used by Boko Haram means children are in danger of being seen as potential threats in north-east Nigeria, the UN children’s agency has said.
There were 27 reported suicide attacks in the first five months of this year, compared with 26 in the whole of last year, Unicef said.
Women and children carried out three-quarters of all such attacks, with girls aged between approximately seven and 17 blamed for nine suicide bombings since July, it said in a collation of reports.
“Children are not instigating these suicide attacks; they are used intentionally by adults in the most horrific way,” said Jean Gough, a Unicef representative in Nigeria. “They are first and foremost victims, not perpetrators.”
The agency is concerned that children will increasingly be perceived as potential threats, putting them in danger of retaliation and jeopardising their return home.
It is not known how many thousands of children and women have been kidnapped by Boko Haram, and new abductions are reported each week. Unicef estimates that 743,000 children have been uprooted by the nearly six-year-old Islamic uprising, with as many as 10,000 separated from their families in the chaos.
Nigeria’s military recently reported rescuing 700 women and children from Boko Haram during a weeks-long offensive to oust the extremists from camps in their Sambisa Forest stronghold.
Reporters have seen only 275 of those freed. They were taken to the safety of a refugee camp on 2 May and then reportedly flown to an unidentified military facility last week, supposedly to undergo more trauma counselling.
Seventy per cent of that group is children under five years old, and 63 were unable to identify relatives, the National Emergency Management Agency said.
Last week the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Peter Maurer, expressed alarm at “the horrific mental and physical scars” inflicted by Boko Haram violence.
“Whole communities have fled their villages and endured unimaginable suffering. Traumatised people, without homes, belongings, income and education for their children,” he said.
theguardian.
There were 27 reported suicide attacks in the first five months of this year, compared with 26 in the whole of last year, Unicef said.
Women and children carried out three-quarters of all such attacks, with girls aged between approximately seven and 17 blamed for nine suicide bombings since July, it said in a collation of reports.
“Children are not instigating these suicide attacks; they are used intentionally by adults in the most horrific way,” said Jean Gough, a Unicef representative in Nigeria. “They are first and foremost victims, not perpetrators.”
The agency is concerned that children will increasingly be perceived as potential threats, putting them in danger of retaliation and jeopardising their return home.
It is not known how many thousands of children and women have been kidnapped by Boko Haram, and new abductions are reported each week. Unicef estimates that 743,000 children have been uprooted by the nearly six-year-old Islamic uprising, with as many as 10,000 separated from their families in the chaos.
Nigeria’s military recently reported rescuing 700 women and children from Boko Haram during a weeks-long offensive to oust the extremists from camps in their Sambisa Forest stronghold.
Reporters have seen only 275 of those freed. They were taken to the safety of a refugee camp on 2 May and then reportedly flown to an unidentified military facility last week, supposedly to undergo more trauma counselling.
Seventy per cent of that group is children under five years old, and 63 were unable to identify relatives, the National Emergency Management Agency said.
Last week the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Peter Maurer, expressed alarm at “the horrific mental and physical scars” inflicted by Boko Haram violence.
“Whole communities have fled their villages and endured unimaginable suffering. Traumatised people, without homes, belongings, income and education for their children,” he said.
theguardian.
