(ANS - Potiskum) – There has been further killing in the part of Nigeria heavily infiltrated by Boko Haram fundamentalists. Just a few days ago the terrorists set a new low, using a child of only seven years to set off an explosion in the market of Potiskum. It is not clear what exactly happened.

According to witnesses the girl pulled out the bomb at a checkpoint, after a discussion arose because she refused to be checked. She had been turned away several times by security agents because, they said, she had no business in the market, but she eventually managed to escape their control.

The last similar attack in Nigeria occurred on 15 February when a sixteen-year-old girl detonated a bomb in Damaturu, killing at least sixteen people and injuring another thirty. On 10 January, a ten-year-old girl was blown up in Maiduguri, killing twenty people.

This umpteenth massacre casts a further shadow over security in Nigeria, with the approach of parliamentary and presidential elections on 28 March. Just yesterday, President Goodluck Jonathan admitted he had underestimated the strength of Boko Haram, which since 2009 has waged civil war in the north-east of the country, with the aim of setting up an Islamic state in Central Africa. It has extended its operations to Cameroon, Chad and Niger. The conflict has so far caused 14,000 deaths and over 1.6 million displaced people.

Meanwhile, Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Benin, with the formal go-ahead of the African Union, have decided to set up a task force to stem the terrorist group.

The use of children enlisted by force and used unknowingly as instruments of death is the ultimate horror of the wickedness and cowardice of the terrorists. Yet their use is increasing and the age decreasing. In January, it was estimated that there are 300,000 child soldiers under the age of 14 years in the various continents,

Published 27/02/2015