The United Nations has announced that over one million children in Nigeria will miss school because of the threat of violence following a series of mass kidnappings and attacks targeting innocent students this year. Since December, criminal gangs have kidnapped about 1,000 students in Nigeria’s northwestern and central states for ransom.
Following an increase in kidnappings, the state government temporarily closed some schools. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), a United Nations agency responsible for providing humanitarian and developmental aid to children, stated that many children would be denied access to their education and other vital benefits once school resumes this month.
According to their report, UNICEF said there had been 20 school attacks in Nigeria this year, with over 1,436 students abducted, 16 killed, and 200 missing.
Over 37 million students are expected to return to school across Nigeria for the new semester. However, families and communities are still afraid to send their children back to school because of the attacks.
As a result, officials are reporting low student attendance in attack-prone areas such as North Central Kaduna state, as authorities in the capital have pushed the school resume date to September 19th for no apparent reason.
In the UNICEF report, the country representative Peter Hawkins urged Nigerian authorities to prioritize security in schools. It was unacceptable for communities to be concerned about sending their children to school because they might be abducted.
Emmanuel Hwande, a spokesperson for the Nigerian Union of Teachers, also urged the government to take responsibility.
“We want the government to take actions, actions that will see that the security agencies respond properly to incidents of kidnapping, incidents of abduction where we’ll see them actively involved, actively engaging such criminal elements,” Emmanuel Hwande said.
After the COVID pandemic disrupted school calendars and learning for millions of Nigerian students, UNICEF’s Peter Hawkins stated the situation had worsened because of prevailing insecurity across the country, such as ransom-seeking gangs.
Since last year, ransom-seeking gangs have targeted schools in northern Nigeria, according to Amnesty International, an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights. Hundreds of schools have been closed.
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