The United Nations voiced alarm Tuesday at Boko Haram jihadists' surging use of children, mainly girls, as human bombs in northeastern Nigeria, describing the practice as an "atrocity". The Islamists have for several years been using children to attack crowded markets, mosques and camps for internally displaced people in northeast Nigeria and the broader Lake Chad region.

But the UN children's agency said Tuesday that there had been an appalling increase in the cruel and calculated use of children, especially girls, as so-called "human bombs". Since the beginning of the year, 83 children have been used to carry out bomb attacks in northeast Nigeria - four times as many attacks as in all of 2016, UNICEF said in a statement.

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2017