Nigerian militia frees 900 children from its ranks

NEARLY 900 children recruited into a pro-government militia force fighting Boko Haram insurgents in north-eastern Nigeria were freed yesterday, the United Nations said.

The 894 children, 106 of them girls, were in the ranks of the Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF), a governmentbacked local militia that supports soldiers battling Islamist insurgents. Some of them were in non-combatant roles but many were recruited to fight.

The children were released at a ceremony in the north-eastern town of Maiduguri as part of the CJTF’S “commitment to end and prevent the recruitment and use of children,” Unicef, the United Nations’ children’s agency, said.

“Children of north-east Nigeria have borne the brunt of this conflict,” said Mohamed Fall, the Unicef chief in Nigeria.

“They have been used by armed groups in combatant and non-combatant roles and witnessed death, killing and violence.”

The CJTF was a militia force formed in 2013 to protect communities from attack – but in doing so but it also recruited hundreds of children. In 2017 it vowed to stop recruiting child soldiers and to release the ones it held. The total number released now stands at 1,727, according to Unicef.

It was unclear how many children remained in the militia, but the UN welcomed yesterday’s news.

“Any commitment for children that

‘We will continue until there is no child left in the ranks of all armed groups in Nigeria’

is matched with action is a step in the right direction,” Mr Fall said.

The children will be enrolled into a reintegration programme to help them return to civilian life.

Boko Haram’s 10-year uprising to establish a hardline Islamic state in Nigeria’s north east has spilt over into Niger, Chad and Cameroon with the jihadists recruiting thousands of children to fight. “We will continue until there is no child left in the ranks of all armed groups in Nigeria,” Mr Fall said, noting that children had been “abducted, maimed, raped and killed”.