University of Washington
Why schools become battlegrounds during conflict
Last week, more than 100 girls who had been abducted by the Islamic militant group Boko Haram from a Nigerian school in Dapchi in February were released to their families. But the community was also threatened that if the group returned and found any girls in school, they would be abducted again – and not returned. Meanwhile, in Syria, conservative estimates are that at least 4,072 schools have been forced to close, used as shelters, or destroyed due to the conflict. And there have been at least 1,292 attacks on schools in the Hama, Daraa, Homs, and Idlib provinces. While a coalition of NGOs were presenting the findings of their #SaveSyrianSchools project in a public hearing in Geneva last week, another school was bombed in Syria, killing at least 15 children. These examples reflect broader trends of targeting education across conflict-affected parts of the world. It is estimated that one in four school-aged children in conflict-affected nations are not in school. This is a total of ar...
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