Nigeria Rebels Drag Children Into Battle

When Islamic militants stormed an onion field here in December, 17-year-old Ibrahim Mallam and his 14-year-old brother Bana became two more youths forced into the ranks of the Boko Haram insurgency. "I haven't heard anything from them since," said their father, Modu Mallam. He fled on foot as the gunmen also abducted his neighbor's wife on Dec. 11. As its war with Nigeria escalates, Boko Haram is building an insurgency in the mountains that increasingly includes children, as well as women, said New York-based Human Rights Watch, Nigerian officials and family members of the conscripts. The children are often lured into combat by cash handouts that start around $6, these people say, but sometimes they are recruited at gunpoint. Then they vanish into the Gwoza Mountains, an impenetrable fortress of dense forests and ravines where Nigerian authorities believe Boko Haram is congregating. Such practices are finding favor among the latest round of insurgencies in Africa, where half of the population is under 19. In Mali, al Qaeda-allied rebels recruited hundreds of children as they swept that country's desert north last year, the United Nations said. An Islamist insurgency called al-Shabaab in Somalia enlisted at least 1,789 minors in 2012 alone, the U.N. reported. In May, the U.N. named 14 countries where minors are being conscripted into conflict. Seven of them are in Africa. That marks a relapse for this continent. After the horrific civil wars in the Liberia and Sierra Leone, the U.N. passed six resolutions against child soldiering that it credits with compelling rebel groups to stop recruiting children. Yet a new generation of militants—broadly inspired by al Qaeda—isn't responding to that kind of pressure. They include Boko Haram, a group that intends to impose Islamic law across Africa's most-populous nation. The conflict is blamed for at least 1,224 deaths since May, according to U.N. figures. Over the past five years, more than 4,000 people have died in the violence—mostly civilians, said the Jamestown Foundation, a research institute in Washington. Boko Haram's conscription of minors appears to reflect dwindling support among adult Nigerians. Still, the child recruiting also signals how powerless the Nigerian government is to stop the insurgency. In a November report, Human Rights Watch described witness accounts of gun-toting Boko Haram combatants as young as 12. The group's researchers spoke to about 60 witnesses during a recent trip, they said, and found accounts of pubescent fighters to be a common feature of the stories they were told, although it is difficult to estimate the numbers enlisted. "It's a constant that there are children in their midst," said the group's Nigeria researcher, Mausi Segun. In May, Nigeria's air force began bombing the parts of the country where Boko Haram is active. In response, Boko Haram has staked out the nation's roads, frequently killing drivers and passengers they deemed insufficiently Islamist. In December, the group used rocket-propelled grenades to incapacitate a Nigerian air base, a forceful display of firepower for a group that only five years ago fought with bows and arrows. Nigeria is spending a fifth of its total budget on security, largely to quash Boko Haram. Officials here worry the induction of child soldiers will prolong the insurgency and continue to siphon off government resources. "We can't have another generation of terrorists," said Fatima Akilu, a top official at Nigeria's National Security Adviser's office. "We just can't afford it." Nigeria's military says it is sending troops into areas where it believes there has been an uptick in forced conscription of youth and women. Col. Mohammed Dole, a spokesman, said he couldn't estimate the numbers enlisted, or their ages. In May, a military unit invited a local journalist to interview 35 children as young as 9. They had been arrested as Boko Haram recruits. One teenager said he had been paid the local equivalent of $30 to pour gasoline on schools and burn them down, the country's Punch newspaper reported. They also included Abba Mohammed. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, the 12-year-old recalled how Boko Haram members gave him a cellphone and told him to spy on soldiers camped nearby. The children had been released and sent for therapy, the military said. The 11-year-old son of Amina Lawami wasn't as fortunate. She was sleeping one night last year when soldiers burst into her bedroom and wrestled her son to the ground. They insisted he was a spy for Boko Haram, "but that's not true," recalled the 26-year-old mother, wrapped in a head scarf. Col. Dole said he wasn't aware of her son's situation. The last time Mrs. Lawami saw her son, she said, he was being pulled into an army truck. —Isaac Abrak in Maiduguri, Nigeria, contributed to this article.