Gordon Brown, UN special envoy for education, on Thursday urged the world to condemn the use of young girls as suicide bombers by Islamist group Boko Haram, calling it “barbaric.”

“The whole world must unite to condemn Boko Haram’s new barbaric low with their evil use of young girls as suicide bombers to carry out their murderous attacks,” Brown said in a statement received by AFP.

At least 19 people were killed last Saturday when a young girl, thought to be aged about 10, blew herself up at a crowded market in the northeast Nigerian city of Maiduguri, the Red Cross and vigilantes said.

The following day, four people were killed in the northeast Nigerian city of Potiskum in neighbouring Yobe state, when two female suicide bombers, one of them aged about 15, blew themselves up in a crowded market.

“These attacks come as Boko Haram have outraged the world with their indiscriminate murders of innocent men, women and children in the towns of Baga and Doron Baga,” said Brown.

Boko Haram launched its first female suicide attack in June last year in the northern state of Gombe.

Brown called for a commitment “to do more to hunt down Boko Haram, and ensure children are better protected by supporting President Goodluck Jonathan’s safe school initiative instead of being used as weapons in senseless acts of war.”

Brown, a former British prime minister, had last May unveiled a project to improve security in Nigerian schools to prevent a repeat of the April 2014 mass kidnap of more than 200 girls by Islamist militants.

ade/ccr