“Last Friday’s attack (on the Government Boys Science Secondary School in the Kankara Local Government Area of Katsina State), directly targeting children in the middle of the night, in a place where they should feel safe, was an outrage.
“Schools should be safe. Children should never be the target of attack – and yet, far too often in Nigeria, they are precisely that – victims of attacks on their schools.
“Attacks on educational facilities are a grave violation of children’s rights. This incident is a disturbing reminder of the heavy toll that violence takes on civilians in north-west Nigeria, including children.”
In a statement today, December 18 in Abuja, the Nation’s capital, UNICEF described such attacks as depriving children of the right to an education, adding that they make children fearful of going to the classroom, and parents afraid to send their children to school.
“Schools must be safe places to study and develop, and learning cannot become a perilous endeavor.
“Interventions must be put in place to ensure that schools are safe, and that all Nigerian children can learn without fear. These interventions should take into account the important role that communities can play in ensuring the safety of schools, including through support for school-based management committees (SBMCs).
“No cause justifies attacks against children and schools. Such cruel disregard for humanity must come to an end.”
