Boko Haram violence forces one million children out of school - UN

Violence in north-east Nigeria and neighbouring countries targeted by Boko Haram has forced more than one million children out of school, leaving them prey to abuse, abduction and recruitment by armed groups, the United Nations said on Tuesday. More than 2,000 schools in Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and Niger remain closed owing to the conflict and hundreds have been looted, damaged or destroyed, said the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF. Insecurity and fear of violence are preventing many teachers from resuming classes and discouraging parents from sending their children back to school, according to UNICEF.

Schools have been targets of attack, so children are scared to go back to the classroom.

UNICEF’s West and Central Africa regional director Manuel Fontaine

In Cameroon’s Far North region, which has been struck by a string of suicide bombings in recent months, blamed on Boko Haram and often carried out by young women, only one school out of the 135 closed in 2014 has reopened this year, UNICEF said. As the Nigerian military wins back territory in the country’s northeast, some schools have been able to reopen, according to UNICEF, yet many are overcrowded and lack the necessary supplies for children to learn. Other areas are still too unsafe to resume class, with Boko Haram threatening in December to mount mass abductions of students, according to Nigerian officials.

It is important to provide education for these vulnerable children – the future generation of our country - who would be targets for Boko Haram if they were not in school.

Hassan Modu, principal of a recently reopened school in the Nigerian city of Maiduguri

Unicef Africa