As reported by the Institute for Security Studies (ISS Today, 10 March 2022), Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) released a video‚ in January 2022 showing
young boys in combat training. As the clip ends, some of the children are shown carrying out real-life executions.
Frans Veerman, Managing Director of World Watch Research (WWR), is sickened by such videos and the portrayed abuse of children: "The use of child soldiers by Boko Haram is widely known (for instance, see detailed
report by VOA, 4 September 2020). Here is now confirmation that ISWAP is doing the same. Indeed the ISS report goes on to say that it has evidence of around 50 training camps operating on the Lake Chad islands, where youth from Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria are among those being hardened for combat. Many of them have endured kidnapping, slavery, starvation, rape, and denial of access to formal education. Ex-Boko Haram members have confirmed that as many as 200 young recruits starved to death before ISWAP split off from Boko Haram in 2016. And if that was not enough, with the Nigerian armed forces regularly bombing Boko Haram and ISWAP groups from the air, many child soldiers are becoming "˜battlefield casualties" even when they are not deployed on the front line."
Frans Veerman continues: "The fact that children are being abducted - either to serve as "˜warrior brides" (girls) or as the next generation of fighters (boys) - is not just a problem experienced in Nigeria, as is explained in WWR"s report on Children and Youth Specific Religious Persecution, published annually in September. Further, page 12 of the September 2021 report indicates why the children of Christians are among those targeted for recruitment in various countries of the world:
"˜Government armies, militias and criminal groups exploit Christian children and youth in conflict zones as commodities. They are shaped into child soldiers - or bought and sold as products trafficked for labor, sexual services or profit. This is more common in conflict-affected areas where people look for strategies to cope with rising levels of violence and where demand for specific services and goods increases. In the worst cases, militants may abduct children and youth to be used as suicide bombers. Christians may be targeted as they are perceived to have less worth and/or to punish churches and Christian families" (
Children and Youth SRP, September 2021)."
