According to UNICEF Nigeria, since December 2020, a total of 1,436 school children and 17 teachers have been abducted from schools across the country, especially the Northern part, out which number, 16 school children have lost their lives, IgbereTV reports
UNICEF stated that 14th April, 2022 marks eight years since the first known attack on a learning institution in Nigeria on 14 April 2014, in which 276 students at Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok in Borno state, North-East Nigeria were abducted by a Non-State Armed Group.
It therefore called that on the 8th Anniversary of the Abduction of the 276 students of Government Girls’ Secondary School, Chibok, there should be action to make schools safe for more girls to enrol and complete their education
UNICEF also called on the authorities in Nigeria to make schools safe and provide a secure learning environment for every child, especially for girls, to increase girls’ enrolment, retention, and completion of education.
It lamented that since then, a spate of attacks on schools and abductions of students – sometimes resulting in their deaths – has become recurrent in the last two years, especially in the north-west and north-central regions of Nigeria.
“Unsafe schools, occasioned by attacks on schools and abduction of students, are reprehensible, a brutal violation of the rights of the victims to education, and totally unacceptable. Their occurrences cut short the futures and dreams of the affected students,” said Peter Hawkins, UNICEF Representative in Nigeria
