A new data from United Nations reveals Boko Haram war has forced a million children from school and the highest is in Nigeria.
The Islamist militant group has forcibly shut down more than 2,000 schools in northeastern Nigeria and neighboring countries, adds United Nationals Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
Considered as the deadliest terror group in the world, Boko Haram seized a large area on northeast Nigeria in 2014 and declared the controlled part as an Islamic caliphate.
One of the main strategies of the group is to attack schools, girls and women. These have further weakened the academic system which is already compromised.
UNICEF’s West and Central Africa regional director Manuel Fontaine said the Boko Haram conflict has a huge blow for education in the region and for over a year violence in the region has kept students out of classroom leading to fully dropout.
In past one year or more hundreds of schools across Nigeria, Chad, Niger and Cameroon have been attacked and violence led to the shut down of more than 2,000 schools. The worst part was killing of about 600 teachers by the terror group, said UNICEF.
In 2014 the terror group had kidnapped 276 girls from a boarding school in Nigeria that sparked social media campaign across the world urging government officials to take action.
UNICEF further added even before the Boko Haram rise the region had a paltry school enrollment rate and about eleven million primary school children were already out of school. Some girls escaped and others were reported to have turned as fighters for the group.
