Boko Haram Has Driven 1 Million Kids Out Of School

Unicef reports that Boko Haram has kept more than one million children out of school as more than 2,000 schools in Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon and Niger have closed, and hundreds of others have been attacked by the militant Islamist group. While some schools have been able to reopen, many of them are overcrowded and lack the necessary educational supplies. The lack of education is likely to fuel further radicalism, because “the longer they stay out of school, the greater the risks of being abused, abducted and recruited by armed groups,” the UN’s children agency warns.
Boko Haram, which translates to “Western education is sinful”, has been targeting schools and teachers as part of their terror campaign — most tragically in Chibok on 14 April, 2014, where they seized 276 schoolgirls. The abduction brought the horrors of Boko Haram to global attention, and spawned the international #BringBackOurGirls campaign.