Boko Haram Accused Of Using Child Soldiers

Human Rights Watch, HRW has accused outlawed
sect Boko Haram of abducting scores of women and
girls and of using children as young as 12 in its
combat operations.
In a statement published on its website on Friday,
the New York-based group also accused the
Nigerian government of failing to account for
hundreds of men and boys rounded up during the
armed group’s four-year insurgency.
The report comes weeks after the government
extended the state of emergency it imposed in May
in the northeastern states of Adamawa, Borno and
Yobe to try and flush out insurgency in the region.
HRW’s Africa director, Daniel Bekele said of the
armed group; “For a group that claims to be
religious, Boko Haram’s tactics are the most
profane acts we can imagine.
“The killing and mutilation of ordinary Nigerians,
the abduction and r*pe of women and girls, and the
use of children for fighting are horrifying human
rights violations,” the rights group added.
Boko Haram intensified its attacks in 2009 in
Nigeria’s mainly Muslim north, killing thousands till
date.
The group’s deadliest attack this year happened in
September in the town of Benisheikh, 74km west of
Maiduguri, killing at least 142 people.
HRW regards the September attack as the most
lethal incident in Borno State since 2010.
Human Rights Watch said its findings were based on
interviews it conducted with more than 60 victims,
medical personnel, Civilian Joint Task Force
commanders, members of local rights groups,
government officials, and witnesses during a nine-
day trip to the cities of Kano and Maiduguri.
The Civilian Joint Task Force, allied with Nigerian
security forces and is helping in the fight against
Boko Haram has also bear the brunt of insurgency
with many of their members having being
ambushed and killed by the terror group.
Human Rights Watch, which last year documented
Boko Haram attacks and abuses by government
security forces against civilians, said the rise of the
Civilian Joint Task Force had added a “worrisome
new dimension to the violence”.
It said civilian task force members inform security
forces about presumed local Boko Haram activity
and the group’s fighters then retaliate against both
the neighbourhood vigilante group and the broader
community.
Commanders of the Civilian Joint Task Force said
that they had rescued 26 abducted women and girls
from a Boko Haram stronghold in Maiduguri and
later in Sambisa Forest, the rights group said.
“Some of the women and girls were pregnant;
others had babies. The commanders told Human
Rights Watch that a number of the girls had been
abducted while hawking wares on the street or
working on farms in remote villages,” the statement
said.
“Many girls who were rescued or had escaped were
sent off by their families to distant cities like Abuja
and Lagos to avoid the stigma of r*pe or pregnancy
outside of marriage.”
Several witnesses said they had seen children in the
ranks of Boko Haram during attacks. In Maiduguri,
Human Rights Watch researchers saw a video
recording of the interrogation by security forces of a
14-year-old boy, who described the role he played
in Boko Haram operations. [AlJazeera]