A 13-year-old Nigerian girl said her father handed her over to the radical Islamist group Boko Haram to become a suicide bomber, local media reported Thursday. The girl spoke at a press conference organized by police on Wednesday, two weeks after she was arrested for carrying explosives when seeking medical help in the northern city of Kano.
The girl had been injured in a suicide bombing carried out by two other girls at a textile market that killed four bystanders. She herself did not detonate the bomb she was carrying. During the press conference, she said she was from Damaturu in north-eastern Yobe state, according to reports in Vanguard and Premium Times. She said members of the militant group promised her she would go to paradise if she completed a suicide bombing mission, but then threatened to kill her when she refused.