LAGOS: An 11-year-old boy has been arrested as a “potential suicide bomber” at a camp for people displaced by the Boko Haram conflict, according to Nigeria’s military.

Army spokesman Col. Sani Usman said troops detained the youngster at the Dalori camp near the Borno state capital, Maiduguri, on Tuesday.

“Preliminary investigation revealed that the suspect was from Bama town and is among four children trained for suicide bombing by the Boko Haram terrorists,” he said in a statement on Wednesday night.

“He further added that the three others have already carried out their missions at different locations. His job was to do (the) same in the camp sometime in the future.”

Usman did not disclose where the three other children had struck. However, four teenage girls blew themselves up near the town of Fotokol in northern Cameroon on Nov. 21, killing five.

A girl thought to be aged just 11 and an 18-year-old woman killed at least 15 at a busy mobile phone market in northern Nigeria’s biggest city, Kano, on Nov. 18.

Boko Haram has in recent months increasingly used suicide bombers in northeast Nigeria, northern Cameroon, Chad and Niger. Most have been young women and girls.