[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he world’s leading organization working for children in danger, UNICEF, Friday warned that the continued closure of schools in the north-east of Nigeria, threatens to create “a lost generation of children, threatening the country’s future” if nothing was done.
The agency’s deputy executive director Justin Forsyth said on a visit to the northeast that the effect of the insurgency on education was “no accident”.
“This was a deliberate strategy (by Boko Haram) to destroy opportunity for children to go to school,” he said.
According to UNICEF, at least 57 percent of schools in Borno state were closed as the new academic year began this month, with teacher numbers as well as buildings badly hit by the violence.
More than 2,295 teachers have been killed and 19,000 displaced, while nearly 1,400 schools have been destroyed in eight years of fighting, it added in a statement.
Schools were shut because they were too badly damaged or were located in areas still deemed unsafe despite a sustained military fight-back against the Islamist militants since 2015.Unicef warned the situation
In March last year, the Borno state government said 5,335 classrooms and school buildings in 512 primary, 38 secondary and two tertiary institutions had been damaged or destroyed.
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