How Boko Harm Attacks Have Devastated Children

However, the organisation says many classrooms are severely overcrowded because “some school buildings are still being used to house the large numbers of displaced persons seeking shelter in the region”. “Schools have been targets of attack, so children are scared to go back to the classroom; yet the longer they stay out of school, the greater the risks of being abused, abducted and recruited by armed groups”, he explained.

In this photo taken Monday, Dec. 7, 2015, children displaced by Boko Haram during an attack on their villages receive lectures in a camp in Maiduguri, Nigeria.

Even before the intimidation by Boko Haram started, Nigeria had the highest global rate of out-of-school children, more than 10 million, said the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

The conflict has forced more than 2,000 schools to close in Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and Niger, the agency said. And in 2016, UNICEF will need almost $23 million to provide access to education for children affected by conflicts in the four countries, most of whom live around the Lake Chad region, the agency added. About 600 teachers have been killed during Boko Haram’s six-year insurgency, it said.

Violence and attacks against civilian populations in the North-East of Nigeria and its neighbouring countries have forced “a staggering” one million children out of school, UNICEF says.

Boko Haram mainly operates in northeastern Nigeria, but the Takfiri group has spread its influence to neighboring African countries and launched attacks in Cameroon, Chad and Niger. The group has recently pledged allegiance to Islamic State changing its name to Islamic State’s West Africa Province (ISWAP). In April, 2014, militants kidnapped more than 200 girls from a school in the northeastern Nigerian city of Chibok.

“There was already a problem with getting kids to school on a regular basis and that simply became worse one Boko Haram emerged”, said Yan-Pierre of the Modern Security Consulting Group.