ICC Note: In the past three years, terrorist group Boko Haram has kidnapped over 10,000 young boys and indoctrinated and trained them to fight for Boko Haram. These boys are generally between the ages of 7 and 17; they are abducted along with their families, then the militants abandon the families and take the boys to their encampments to ‘train’ them. After forcing them to read the Quran, indoctrinating them with violent jihadist agenda, and threatening them, they use these young boys as fighters, suicide bombers, and spies. Some of these boys have escaped from the horrors of captivity with Boko Haram and reported how the terrorist group uses these recruits. The boys do as they are told out of fear of being killed by their captors, sometimes they are even forced to murder their own families. Boko Haram has been active in Nigeria for the past seven years, killing thousands and displacing, abducting, and raping many others; they are known in particular to target Christian villages and families with their violence.

08/18/2016, Nigeria (Christian Post) – The world was horrified when the Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram kidnapped 276 schoolgirls from the town of Chibok in 2014. But less coverage has been given to the kidnapping of more than 10,000 boys over the last three years by the terror group and their brutal coercion tactics, forcing children to wage jihad.

The allegations are contained in a stunning investigative report by Drew Hinshaw and Joe Parkinson in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ).

Shortly after the Chibok schoolgirls were seized, Boko Haram attacked six villages in the nearby mountains and rounded up children there, with little media coverage beyond the Nigerian press.

A few months later, the group captured the town of Damasak, and took 300 students, mostly boys, age 7 to 17. The militants imprisoned them in a school, witnesses told the WSJ. Their parents were held in separate rooms. For months, the children were forced to learn the Quran.

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