Boko

Boko Haram has aggressively attacked schools and other institutions with increasingly frequency of late. Watchlist’s research suggests that 414 students, teachers, and others have been killed or injured as a result of school-focused attacks.

A student of Federal Government College, Buni Yadi, 13, described a traumatic attack on February 25th, 2014, that left 29-59 boys dead, saying “[A] person pointed a gun at me…I fell down…I was hit with two bullets on my left foot…I pretended I died…because if I didn’t pretend they would shoot me again.”

These incidences are unquestionably crippling education in the northeast. Mass panic and violence have kept many children out of school. UNICEF reports, according to Watchlist, that one in every three primary school children and one in every four junior secondary school children are out of school in the northeast.

Several schools have been closed as a result of the violence as well. Teachers, their morale at staggering lows, have resigned from their responsibilities in great numbers, and concerned parents have kept their children out of school. These factors combined completely hinder educational growth and development for children in the northeast.

Abduction:

Following the abduction of over 200 girls from Chibok, in Borno State this past April, Boko Haram’s danger to children was publicized internationally. A significant, yet not isolated tragedy, the mass abduction highlighted a dangerous trend. Kidnapped children of both sexes have been subjected to conversion and recruitment, forced marriage, sale and trafficking, and sexual violence and exploitation.

Abducted girls have been a subject of Boko Haram leader Shekau’s focus. Shekau, who has stated that girls are being abducted in response to the military’s capture and detention of militant’s wives.

While these are known threats, less known is the reality that the few children who escape abduction by Boko Haram have minimal, if any, access to counseling and treatment. “[When I left the camp],” a formerly abducted girl told Watchlist, “it made me insane.”