Boko Haram keeps 1 million children out of school, UN says
At least one million children are out of school due to violence in northeast Nigeria and neighbouring countries, the United Nations has said.
Northeast Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and Niger have been the target of Islamic militant group, Boko Haram, leading to the closure of more than 2,000 schools.
According to 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 even though some schools have reopened.
“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 said in a statement.
“Yet the longer they stay out of school, the greater the risks of being abused, abducted and recruited by armed groups.”
More than 400 schools have reopened since October in Nigeria’s Borno state, birthplace of the six-year insurgency waged by Boko Haram, more than 18 months after education was halted in the wake of an attack on a school in neighbouring Yobe state which killed 59 students, a the statement says.
Still there’s the challenge of overcrowded classrooms as some schools are still being used to house displaced people seeking shelter from the conflict.
The situation is much worse in neighbouring Cameroon. Only one of the 135 schools closed in Cameroon’s Far North region in 2014 has reopened this year.
The government of Nigeria, with help from other countries, is still struggling to curtail the activities of the militant group which has intensified its campaign in 2015..
