Nearly one in four schools is closed in Burkina Faso due to jihadist violence that has plagued the country since 2015 and has been intensifying for several months, a Norwegian NGO said in a statement on Tuesday.
In February, 6,134 schools were closed, an increase of more than 40% since May 2022, specifies the NGO Norwegian Refugee Council (Norwegian Refugee Council, NRC).
"
More than a million children in Burkina Faso are affected
" by these closures, "
often traumatized by displacement and conflict
", adds the NGO.
"Redouble your efforts"
“
Only a quarter of the children affected have been reassigned to new classrooms.
The majority of them have not regained access to education
”, points out the director of NRC in Burkina Faso, Hassane Hamadou, quoted in the press release.
He calls on the country's authorities and humanitarian actors to "
redouble their efforts
", "
as a matter of urgency
".
"
When a child is not in school, he is more at risk of being exploited, of being the victim of violence and trafficking, or even of being recruited by armed groups",
declared the representative of the UN agency Unicef in Burkina Faso, Sandra Lattouf, also quoted by NRC.
Burkina has "
nearly half of the closed schools in Central and West Africa
", according to the NGO.
According to her, neighboring Mali and Niger have 1,762 and 878 respectively, 3,285 schools are closed in Cameroon, 1,344 in the DRC, 181 in Nigeria, 134 in Chad and 13 in the Central African Republic.
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NRC reports that the number of school closures in Burkina is highest in the Boucle du Mouhoun (west), Sahel and Est regions, regions regularly targeted by attacks.
These areas are also affected by food insecurity, "
a factor in school dropouts
", according to Yembuani Yves Ouoba, director of the Burkinabe association Tin Tua.
This situation affects 31,000 teachers, of whom 6,300 have been redeployed to other schools.
The NGO recognizes, however, that the “
reopening
” and “
relocation
” of schools since January “
constitute a step in the right direction
”.
Burkina Faso, the scene of two military coups in 2022, has been caught up in a spiral of jihadist violence since 2015 that has left more than 10,000 dead and some two million internally displaced.
In March, UNICEF indicated that 10 million children were threatened by insecurity in the central Sahel.