An “alarming” increase in the number of suicide attacks, many of them involving girls and women, has been recorded in northern Nigeria, the UN children’s agency Unicef says.
There had been 27 attacks so far this year, compared with 26 for the whole of last year, it said in a statement.
Three-quarters of the attacks were carried out by female bombers, some as young as seven, Unicef added.
Militant Islamist group Boko Haram is waging an insurgency in Nigeria.
BBC Nigeria analyst Naziru Mikailu says Boko Haram may be increasingly resorting to suicide attacks, following its loss of territory to regional forces.
‘Exploited’
Nigeria’s army said in March that it had recaptured all cities and towns from the group, which has pledged allegiance to Islamic State militants fighting for a global caliphate.
Unicef said it did not believe that the girls carried out the attacks willingly and some may not even have been aware that they were on suicide missions.
A child rescued from Boko Haram in Sambisa forest is seen at the Internally Displaced People’s camp in Yola, Nigeria on 3 May 2015.
Some of the girls had been abducted and were being exploited by militants who knew that they were less likely to be checked when entering target areas such as busy markets or bus stations, it added.
Our correspondent says there is suspicion that some girls are duped into being bombers, thinking they are carrying parcels when they are, in fact, explosives.
More than 15,500 people have been killed during the six-year insurgency.
About 1.5 million people have been displaced and hundreds more abducted by Boko Haram.
Earlier this month, the military rescued nearly 300 women and children who were being held by the group in its forest hideout in north-eastern Nigeria.
Among those still being held captive are 219 girls who were taken from their boarding school in Chibok town in April 2014, sparking global outrage.(BBC)
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