Triple suicide attack kills 27 on Lake Chad island: source – Boy trained as suicide bomber against refugees

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N’DJAMENA, Dec 5, (Agencies): At least 27 people were killed and more than 80 wounded Saturday in a triple suicide bombing on an island in Lake Chad, a security source in the capital, N’Djamena said. “Three suicide bombers blew themselves up in three different places at the weekly market on Loulou Fou, an island in Lake Chad,” the source told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity in a region where a state of emergency was put in place last month following a wave of attacks by Boko Haram Islamists.

Meanwhile, women and even girls have been used by Islamic extremists in Nigeria as suicide bombers. Now, the military says it has detained an 11-year-old boy who is currently describing to interrogators how Boko Haram trained him to be a suicide bomber and attack the biggest refugee camp in war-torn northeast Nigeria. The boy is suspect No. 82 on a poster showing photographs of 100 wanted Boko Haram militants, according to army spokesman Col Sani Kukasheka Usman. “The child said he was sneaked into the camp as a displaced child to get familiarized with the people and wait for the day he would be prompted to carry (out) his own suicide attack,” Usman said in a statement. He said the boy was arrested Tuesday by troops guarding Dalori refugee camp in Maiduguri, the northeastern city that is the birthplace of Nigeria’s homegrown Islamic extremist group. He told interrogators that three other children who trained with him already have blown themselves up in suicide attacks. Usman did not respond to an emailed list of questions and The Associated Press was not immediately able to get access to the child to verify the military’s account.

The boy is still being interrogated, in the Hausa language that is all he speaks, at a military camp in Maiduguri on Friday, according to an officer at the camp who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to reporters. Hundreds of people have died in recent months in suicide bombings in mosques, market places, restaurants, bus stations and other crowded areas. Many bombers are young women and children — one girl bomber reportedly looked as young as 7. A military bomb expert has told the AP that some suicide bombs have been detonated remotely.

That has led to speculation that Boko Haram is turning kidnap victims into unwilling weapons. Usman identified the 11-year-old boy as a resident of Bama, a town 45 miles (72 kms) northeast of Maiduguri. Boko Haram had seized Bama in September 2014 and a year ago published a video showing gunmen mowing down civilians lying face down in the town, executing them as “infidels.” Nigeria’s air force and army reported destroying several Boko Haram camps around Bama in August, and rescuing 178 people, including 101 children, held captive by the extremists.

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