ICC Note: Reports from northeast Nigeria suggest one out of three girls tasked as suicide bombers in a recent Boko Haram attack on a displacement camp aborted her mission, instead choosing to ditch her explosive vest and survive. Her story reveals frightening details about the psychology of a suicide bomber. In this instance, Mody Awami thought about her father and decided not to go through with the suicide, but failed to convince the other two bombers to make the same lifesaving choice. In a recent disturbing trend, Boko Haram continues to emply young girls like Modu to pay the ultimate price in carrying out their deadly bidding. The attack in question at Dikwa camp resulted in nearly 60 people murdered.
2/12/16 Maiduguri, Nigeria (The Guardian) – Strapped with a suicide bomb vest and sent by the extremist Boko Haram group to kill as many people as possible, the teenage girl tore off the explosives and fled as soon as she was out of sight of her handlers.
Her two companions, however, completed their grisly mission and walked into a crowd of hundreds at Dikwa refugee camp in north-east Nigeria and blew themselves up, killing 58 people.
Later found by local security forces, the girl’s tearful account is one of the first indications at least some of the child bombers used by Boko Haram are aware they are about to die and kill others.
Modu Awami, a self-defence fighter who helped question the girl, said: “She said she was scared because she knew she would kill people. But she was also frightened of going against the instructions of the men who brought her to the camp.”
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