Boko Haram leaves 3 million kids out of school in Nigeria

Boko Haram's ongoing insurgency in northern Nigeria has forced the closure of more than 57 per cent of schools in Borno state, leaving about 3 million children without an education as the school year begins. 

The United Nations Children's Fund said that Children in northeast Nigeria are living through so much horror.UNICEF's Deputy Executive Director, Justin Forsyth at the end of a three-day visit to Maiduguri, the epicenter of the crisis in the northeast, said in addition to devastating malnutrition, violence and an outbreak of cholera, the attacks on schools is in danger of creating a lost generation of children, threatening their and the country's



future.

UNICEF has been able to enroll nearly 750,000 children in school this year in northern Nigeria, it said, establishing more than 350 temporary learning spaces.

But the UN humanitarian agency says that only 12 per cent of funding needed for education in Nigeria has been received.

Teachers are needed in the remote areas, and funds are needed to recruit them and to rebuild schools, Forsyth said, calling for a deeper partnership and more investment by the government, international community and UN.

Investing in learning and education is an important way of combatting extremism, said Forsyth.