In the last two years, Boko Haram militants have increasingly turned to a new tactic in their attacks in West Africa: child suicide bombers.

The number of children involved in such blasts grew tenfold, from four in 2014 to 44 in 2015, according to a report released by the U.N. children’s agency on Tuesday. And more than three-quarters of the children are girls — some as young as 8 years old.

The accounts by UNICEF add another chilling view into the atrocities blamed on the Boko Haram group, which has conducted mass kidnappings of children, including more than 200 school girls abducted from a boarding school in northern Nigeria two years ago.

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Image courtesy of Reuters