Boko Haram terrorists are recruiting children as soldiers and suicide bombers

The militant group Boko Haram continues to recruit children and use them in battlefields across Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger and Chad, officials and experts say.

While it has suffered major military losses in the Lake Chad Basin, the extremist group seems to be adopting new strategies to revive its influence in the region, according to the experts.

Officials with the Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF), a regional military alliance fighting the Boko Haram insurgency, say one strategy of the group is to step up child recruitment.

“Information on this disturbing development was brought in by human intelligence sources and corroborated by concerned individuals and groups,” said Colonel Timothy Antiga, a spokesman for the MNJTF.

“Boko Haram terrorists themselves further confirmed the atrocious acts when they posted pictures of children dressed in military fatigues and holding assault rifles in a video released during a celebration of the Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha,” he told VOA in a recent interview.

The Nigerian military official added that the recruitment of child soldiers “is the latest in a retinue of brutal and inhuman tactics deployed by Boko Haram” since it began its insurgency a decade ago. Boko Haram has been fighting to create an Islamic caliphate based in Nigeria.

Source: VOA News