'Seven-year-old girl' kills herself and five others in Nigeria suicide bombing | World Defense

'Seven-year-old girl' kills herself and five others in Nigeria suicide bombing

Redheart

SENIOR MEMBER
Joined
Dec 26, 2014
Messages
1,239
Reactions
319 0 0
Country
USA
Location
USA
Tragic . . .

'Seven-year-old girl' kills herself and five others in Nigeria suicide bombing | World news | The Guardian

A girl thought to be as young as seven killed herself and five others in a suicide bombing in north-east Nigeria on Sunday as the country’s president, Goodluck Jonathan, conceded that his government had underrated the capacity of the Islamist extremist group Boko Haram.

The attack on a market in the town of Potiskum is the latest in a string of suicide strikes in which children have been used. Previous attacks have been blamed on Boko Haram.

Nineteen people were injured in the blast in Yobe state’s commercial capital, a local vigilante leader said. “So far, five people were killed with the girl while 19 others have been taken to hospital for injuries,” Buba Lawan said.

A hospital source speaking on condition of anonymity confirmed the toll.

The bombing highlights the severe security challenges facing Nigeria in the runup to presidential and parliamentary elections on 28 March.

During a trip through neighbouring Chad, Cameroon and Niger, the French foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, on Sunday urged Nigeria to commit itself fully to battling Boko Haram.

“It is necessary that there be full commitment from Nigeria in the fight against Boko Haram,” he told reporters during a press conference in Niger’s capital, Niamey.

On Saturday in the Chadian capital N’Djamena, Fabius visited a coordination cell set up at a French military base between Cameroon, Chad, Niger and France.

Paris has promised to increase intelligence-sharing and other assistance to the armies of Nigeria and its three neighbours, which banded together to battle Boko Haram after the extremists expanded their campaign across the region’s borders.

Jonathan, who has been in office since 2011, is in a tough re-election campaign against the former military ruler Muhammadu Buhari.

Voting initially scheduled for 14 February has been delayed for six weeks to give Nigeria’s military time to secure the country, despite its failure to beat Boko Haram back over the past six years.

Jonathan admitted in an interview published on Sunday that he hadunderestimated the Islamists, who have overrun swaths of the north-east.

“Probably at the beginning, we, and I mean myself and the team, we underrated the capacity of Boko Haram,” Jonathan told the newspaper ThisDay.

He said the military has recently acquired more arms and ammunition, and vowed that Boko Haram’s defeat was imminent.

Sunday’s bombing in Potiskum was the second suicide attack in or near the market where new and secondhand phones are sold and repaired.

The first attack occurred on 11 January, when two suicide bombers - one of whom appeared to be around 15 - blew themselves up outside the market killing six people and injuring 37 others.

Before Sunday’s strike, suspicious security guards and vigilantes said they tried to prevent the girl, whom witnesses said appeared around seven, from entering the market.

“We sent her back four times, because given her age, she did not have anything to do in the market,” Lawan said.

“When we were screening people, she bent and tried to pass under the ropes, some distance from our view. That was when the explosives went off.”

In a sign of the distrust generated by the suicide campaign, Lawan said “we have barred women from entering the market to prevent further attacks”.

More than 13,000 people have been killed and more than a million people left homeless since 2009 as the rebels try to carve out an Islamic state.
 

xTinx

MEMBER
Joined
Jan 1, 2015
Messages
445
Reactions
67 0 0
Country
Philippines
Location
Philippines
That is just sick. Can a seven year old girl consciously, with all due free will, kill herself? I don't think so. Boko Haram obviously strapped a bomb around her body and forcefully made her a sacrificial lamb. No doubt Boko Haram adopted the same techniques as ISIS. They're heavy on child and women trafficking. Some of the women and children are then forced to become suicide bombers. I so badly want all terrorists to disappear from this planet. The governments of Nigeria, Cameroon and Chad are having a hard time defeating Boko Haram because they use women and children to shield them. Despicable.
 

Redheart

SENIOR MEMBER
Joined
Dec 26, 2014
Messages
1,239
Reactions
319 0 0
Country
USA
Location
USA
They keep doing what all cowards do — use the weak to defend themselves. But using children as suicide bombers . . . that's going damn too far. Had the Nigerian government taken action earlier when Boko Haram was just taking root, they'd have defeated the terrorists a long time ago. But because they dragged their feet . . . the savages have committed and for an indefinite time will continue committing numerous atrocities. The blood of their victims is on the hands of the Nigerian government.
 

vegito12

MEMBER
Joined
Dec 26, 2014
Messages
349
Reactions
41 0 0
Country
New Zealand
Location
New Zealand
The girl may have been told she will be a sacrifice to help the cause go ahead and fight the people who are against them, and this is wrong what the girl did and lost her life in the process. I reckon these sort of people use innocent ones or tell their families that this is needed and they believe it for some reason. Always innocent people lose their lives when arrogant people, or evil minded ones like this guy made this girl a sacrifice which is sad to see this girl lost her life.
 

missbishi

MEMBER
Joined
Dec 30, 2014
Messages
404
Reactions
118 0 0
Country
United Kingdom
Location
United Kingdom
The poor girl has clearly been brainwashed into doing this. She may not even have understood that she would kill herself. She was certainly persistent in her efforts to gain entry to the market so must have really believed that this was somethng she had to do.

It's high time Nigeria took action though - they have let BH get away with things for far too long now.
 
Top