More than 1,000 children have been abducted by the Boko Haram terror group in northeastern Nigeria since 2013, the United Nation Children Fund said in a Friday report as the country prepares to make the fourth anniversary of the Chibok abductions on April 14, 2014.
“Since 2013, more than 1000 children have been abducted by Boko Haram in north-eastern Nigeria, including 276 girls taken from their secondary school in the town of Chibok in 2014,” the statement said.
Nigeria over the last few years has been hammered by several insurgent attacks, the most popular of the attack that draws global outrage and condemnation from international agencies is the incident that occur on the 1st of April 2014, when the said Islamist group (Boko Haram) kidnapped over 276 girls within the ages of 15-17 years in Chibok.
The Chibok abduction sparked global outrage and reignited the fight against the ISIS-aligned terrorist group.
Some of the girls were finally freed three years later, following negotiation talks between the Nigerian government and Boko Haram. But more than 100 of them remain in captivity.
The pains also inflicted by the Niger-delta, where oil pipe lines were vandalized, sending oil production to a decade low of 1.2 million barrel and making Africa’s largest economy go into its first recession since 25 years.
Also mentioning, the February 19th Dapchi attack in Yobe State where some 110 school girls were kidnapped.
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. Not even schools are spared from violence.
“These repeated attacks against children in schools are unconscionable,” UNICEF Representative in Nigeria Mohamed Malick Fall said.
“Children have the right to education and protection, and the classroom must be a place where they are safe from harm.” he added.
The UN agency explained that 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 on-going insecurity.
The agency further acknowledged that the Nigerian authorities have made a commitment to make schools safer and more resilient to attack, and promised to stand with the country to implement the Safe Schools Declaration, by cooperating more with the military force and ensuring more protection for schools and universities from violence from the dreaded Islamic group Boko Haram.
“UNICEF is appealing for an end to attacks on schools and all grave violations of children’s rights,” the statement added.
MICHEAL ANI with agency report
