Nigerian terror group Boko Haram is training child soldiers how to use semi-automatic weapons.
The group has released pictures showing more than a dozen children posing with, and learning how to aim, AK-47's.
The images appear to have been taken in northern Nigeria where Boko Haram has committed most of its attacks.
They were published online by Al Urwa al Wuthaqa, a media group that has been associated with the insurgents, and come months after Human Rights Watch warned that boys and girls kidnapped by the terrorist group were being used during their attacks.
Just days ago Boko Haram were suspected of kidnapping at least 30 children, including girls as young as 11, in a village north of the country. A week earlier the terrorists snatched around 40 women in Adamawa State.
In April the group came to international attention after it snatched over 200 schoolgirls in the Chibok village and in January they killed at least 2,000 people, in Baga, Borno state.
Following the mass killing, the Christian Association of Nigerians and Americans called for the UN to help Nigeria combat Boko Haram. It said the group had killed more than 10,000 people in 2014.
In a statement it said: 'We are no longer certain what the world through the UN is waiting for before taking drastic actions.
'The numbers are adding up fast and it is becoming clearer and clearer that the Nigerian governments both federal and states are failing resoundingly in their responsibility to protect innocent lives. Canan continues to be concerned about relief for the victims of terrorism in Nigeria.'
Pastor Laolu Akande, the association's executive director, told the International Business Times that Boko Haram can only be defeated if the Nigerian military is backed up internationally.
He said Nigeria had been trying to defeat the terrorist for four years, but 'Nigerian forces are too weak'.
Pastor Akande said: 'It is time for international force of the calibre of the UN to deploy troops in that part of Nigeria. This has to be done and it cannot be ignored any more.'
He said Nigerians deserved the same attention and support as the victim's of the Paris terrorist attacks earlier this month.
'It is important to understand that what is happening in Nigeria is a genocide, like the one occurred in Rwanda in 1994, and the world did not intervene to stop it. The UN has the responsibility to protect Nigeria. Boko Haram members are very despicable and brutal and every person in the world has to rise and say no to this violence.'
The images come just days after Boko Haram were suspected of kidnapping at least 30 children, including girls as young as 11, in a village north of the country; a week earlier the terrorists snatched around 40 women in Adamawa State; Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau, is pictured above, delivering a message
Culled from DAILY MAIL
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