OUAGADOUGOU, Feb 24, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – More than 150,000 children are not
going to school in Burkina Faso because of the threat of jihadist violence,
the education minster has said, warning of a “deteriorating” situation in the
West African nation.
More than 1,100 schools have been forced to close or temporarily shutdown
due to assaults and threats by radical Islamists, Stanislas Ouaro said on
recently.
“This year the situation is deteriorating,” he said.
“There are schools closed for a few weeks, a few months and others since
the beginning of the (school) year.”
The school year began in October 2018 but some 5,000 teachers are unable to
work, he said.
More than 300 people have been killed in Burkina Faso — part of the
troubled vast Sahel region — in four years of jihadist attacks, according to
an AFP count.
School closures have spread from the country’s conflict-ridden north to the
east, the minister said.
He said 1,135 schools were closed, with 154,233 students prevented from
attending classes.
“Forty-six percent of them are girls,” Ouaro told state television.
Last week the United Nations and the government highlighted the number of
school closures in Burkina Faso and said more than a million people were in
“critical need” of humanitarian aid.
They launched a plan to raise $100 million to provide food, water, housing
and healthcare.
About 130,000 children are threatened by severe malnutrition, according to
the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
Some 83,000 people have been forced to flee their homes due to the
continuing violence, OCHA said.
International efforts to create a transnational anti-jihadist military
operation, named the G5 Sahel force, have so far failed to make much impact.