Deadly attacks that target children

PARIS: The Manchester pop concert bomber deliberately targeted young fans of US pop star Ariana Grande in Monday night's deadly attack. Of the 22 victims killed, the youngest identified so far by police was eight-years-old. Another was aged 15.

Police deploy at scene of explosion in Manchester, England, on May 23, 2017 at a concert. PHOTO: AFP

Here is a recap of some of the worst such attacks targeting children and young people over the past decade:



The most deadly attack on children took place on December 16, 2014, when Taliban fighters killed more than 150 people, including 134 children, in a school massacre in the northwestern city of Peshawar. It was claimed by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan [TTP], whose militants carried out the assault as revenge for an ongoing military operation against their hideouts.

Soldiers walk amidst the debris in an army-run school a day after an attack by Taliban in Peshawar on December 17, 2014. PHOTO: AFP

The Taliban had already carried out an assassination attempt in 2012 of 15-year-old children's education advocate Malala Yousafzai, shooting her in the head in Swat Valley. She was later awarded the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize.

Pakistani army doctors give treatment to injured Malala Yousafzai. PHOTO: AFP

On March 19, 2012, self-proclaimed Al-Qaeda militant Mohamed Merah murdered three Jewish children and a teacher in an attack at their school in Toulouse, southwestern France. The man, who had killed three soldiers several days earlier, was shot dead on March 22 by police.



Adults comfort students as they walk away from the Ozar Hatorah Jewish school in Toulouse, France. PHOTO: AFP

On July 22, 2011, far-right militants Anders Behring Breivik attacked a youth rally on the Norwegian island of Utoya after detonating a car bomb in Oslo. Posing as a police officer, he gunned down 69 youths on the island, including around 50 between the ages of 14 and 18.

A wounded woman is brought ashore opposite Utoya island [in the distance] after being rescued from a gunman who went on a killing rampage targeting participants in a Norwegian Labour Party youth organisation event on the island, some 40 kilometres south-west of Oslo. PHOTO: AFP

Many children are also used as suicide bombers in war zones, as in Nigeria, Syria or Iraq.

According to a recent report by UN children's agency Unicef the Boko Haram group has used 117 children since 2014 to carry out bomb attacks in Nigeria, Chad, Niger and Cameroon. Boko Haram also kidnapped 276 schoolgirls in Chibok, northeastern Nigeria on April 14, 2014, of which more than 100 are still in the hands of the group.

Many children are regularly victims of attacks in war zones. On April 15 in Syria an evacuation operation in besieged Foua and Kafraya was overshadowed by the explosion of a vehicle bomb which killed 150 including 72 children.

A rebel fighter stands near buses carrying people evacuated from the two villages of Kefraya and al-Foua, after an agreement reached between rebels and Syria's army, at insurgent-held al-Rashideen, Aleppo province, Syria April 14, 2017. PHOTO: REUTERS