Made-up to look beautiful. Sent out to die. - BBC News - 0 views
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She was just 13 when she was snatched by two men on a motorbike while she was walking to a relative’s house near the border with Cameroon.
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The camp belonged to Boko Haram, the militant group that has been fighting a long insurgency aimed at creating an Islamic state in northern Nigeria.
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Life in the camp was incredibly monotonous. Wake up, pray, eat, clean, pray, eat, and clean - all day long. There were daily religious lessons, long hours reciting verses from the Koran.
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almata was approached by armed men and instructed to prepare herself for something important. Her feet were to be decorated with henna. Her hair was to be straightened. Was she being prepared for her wedding, she wondered. Was she going to be married off to a fighter after all? “My friend Hauwa had agreed to get married as a way of trying to stay alive,” Falmata says. “She wanted to find a way to escape.
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In their hands were small, homemade detonators. On the way, the three of them discussed whether to carry out the “mission” or abandon it. Should they just do as they were ordered, or try to make their escape? They decided not to carry out the attack.
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“A lot of the people we meet who have been in these camps haven’t had much education before, neither Western nor Islamic,” says Akilu.
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Sanaa Mehaydali is thought to have been the first female suicide bomber in modern history. The 16-year-old killed herself and two Israeli soldiers in a suicide attack in southern Lebanon in 1985.
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s that hundreds of young girls have been forced to carry out attacks in the past three years, in Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and Niger.
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She had not gone far before she met two men on the side of the road. What she didn't know was that they, too, belonged to Boko Haram - but a different unit. Falmata was kidnapped for a second time.
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The first time a girl was forced by the group to carry out an attack was June 2014. The bombing of a military barracks took place shortly after the notorious kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls, who became known as the Chibok girls.
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She says at first it was mainly young men who carried out suicide attacks - ones who were inspired by Boko Haram’s ideology and rhetoric.
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n] military offensive got more intense, the pool of young men volunteering dropped significantly, so Boko Haram started kidnapping and coercing young girls for suicide missions.
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d of 2017, 454 women and girls had been deployed or arrested in 232 incidents, Pearson says. The attacks killed 1,225 people. Pearson is the author of a study about Boko Haram’s use of female suicide bombers.
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A belt of explosives was attached to her stomach. But this time she ran into the forest as soon as the fighters left her.
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Fatima Akilu has met a number of youngsters like Falmata. She says that when they return, they need time to re-establish family bonds. “She’s been away from her family for too long and she might have changed during this time. But her family may also have changed and have traumas of their own.”
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She had tasted freedom, but this would turn out to be short-lived. So why didn’t she detonate her suicide belt and end it all? “I wanted to live,” she says. “Killing is not good. It’s what my family taught me and what I believe in too.”