Many of the young girls Boko Haram sends out as suicide bombers in Nigeria and neighbouring countries are probably unaware that they will be blown up, a UN expert revealed on Tuesday.
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A United Nations expert said on Tuesday that many of the young girls Boko Haram send out as suicide bombers in Nigeria and neighbouring countries are probably unaware that they will be blown up.
Leila Zerrougui, the UN secretary-general's special representative on children and armed conflict, suggested that especially the children used in this way were in many cases not aware of what they were about to do.
"Many of them don't know that they will be blown up with remote devices. I personally doubt that the children know. That means that it is not the person herself who did it," she told reporters, adding that security forces had informed the UN that the bombs are often set off remotely.
Zerrougui lamented that the use of children as human bombs is one of the worst manifestations of an increasingly blatant disregard for the safety and security of minors in conflict situations around the world.
Boko Haram jihadists have in recent months increasingly used young women and girls as suicide bombers in northeast Nigeria, northern Cameroon, Chad and Niger, leaving death and destruction in their wake.