About 57 percent of schools in Nigeria’s Borno state are closed due to the conflict waged by Islamist militant group Boko Haram, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on Friday.
The northeastern region of the country has been most affected by the terror campaign that has left an estimated 3 million children in need of emergency education support.
“Children in northeast Nigeria are living through so much horror,” UNICEF’s Deputy Executive Director Justin Forsyth said following a three-day visit to Maiduguri.
Since 2009, more than 2,295 teachers have been killed and 19,000 others displaced across the northeast. About 1,400 schools have been destroyed with the majority unable to open due to damages, or because they are in areas deemed too unsafe.
Forsyth also said an outbreak of disease is threatening the lives of the children in the region.
“In addition to devastating malnutrition, violence and an outbreak of cholera, the attacks on schools is in danger of creating a lost generation of children, threatening their and the countries future,” he said.
The Boko Haram militancy has killed tens of thousands and forced more than 2 million out of their homes.
The displacements have led to a humanitarian crisis in northeast Nigeria, with hundreds of thousands reported to be in dire need of aid.
The UN earlier this year lamented the inaccessibility of refugee camps to aid workers, calling upon the government to facilitate that reach in order to provide aid to those in need.
