The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has called for an immediate end to the recruitment and use of Nigerian children by armed groups in the North-East.

“We call for an immediate end to the recruitment and use of innocent children as soldiers or for any other conflict-related role,” UNICEF said on Monday.

The organisation described the recruitment as “unconscionable.”

“It is unacceptable and unconscionable that girls and boys continue to serve on the frontlines of a conflict they did not start, ” UNICEF said in a statement by Phuong T. Nguyen, its chief field officer in Maiduguri.

It also called for the release of all children in custody and support for former child soldiers in the North-East.

UNICEF noted that from 2009, more than 8,000 girls and boys have been recruited and used as child soldiers in different roles by armed groups.

It also said for 13 years, armed conflict in the North-East had claimed thousands of lives and disrupted livelihoods and access to essential services for children and their families, with about one million homes and 5,000 classrooms razed in the protracted armed conflict.

The UN agency called on the Nigerian authorities to sign the handover protocol for children encountered in the course of armed conflict in Nigeria and the Lake Chad Basin Region, which would end the detention of children formerly associated with armed groups.

(NAN)