More than 1,000 children have been abducted by Boko Haram in north-eastern Nigeria since 2013, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has said.
This figure includes the 276 girls taken from their secondary school in Chibok community in Borno state in 2014.
The representative of UNICEF in Nigeria, Mohamed Fall said, “the fourth year anniversary of the Chibok abduction reminds us that children in north-eastern Nigeria continue to come under attack at a shocking scale. They are consistently targeted and exposed to brutal violence in their homes, schools and public places.”
He said that the recent attack on a school in Dapchi in which five girls lost their lives is just the latest indication that there are few safe spaces left for children in the northeast adding that not even schools are spared from violence.
“These repeated attacks against children in schools are unconscionable. Children have the right to education and protection, and the classroom must be a place where they are safe from harm,” he said.
He lamented that four years on from the tragic abduction of Chibok school girls, more than 100 of them are yet to be returned to their families.
Since the conflict started in north-eastern Nigeria nearly nine years ago, at least 2,295 teachers have been killed and more than 1,400 schools have been destroyed. Most of these schools have not reopened because of extensive damage or ongoing insecurity, according to UNICEF reports.
UNICEF appealed for an end to attacks on schools and all grave violations of children’s rights. It added that they stand with Nigerian authorities to implement the Safe Schools Declaration and the commitment to make schools safer and more resilient to attack to protecting schools and universities from violence and military use during armed conflict.
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