A total of 1,440 students have been abducted and 25 school attacks have taken place in Nigeria in 2021, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund.
Nigerian children have been subjected to a conflict that has ravaged their country for 12 years, suffering its consequences, the agency said in a statement on Tuesday.
“Thousands of children in the region have been killed, maimed, abducted, displaced, and experienced multiple violations of their human rights,” the statement read.
Nigerian children are direct targets and collateral victims of violence in their country.
They are “caught up in the ongoing insecurity we are seeing across the country,” said Phuong T. Nguyen, UNICEF head of the Maiduguri field office in Nigeria. “This is unacceptable.”
The UNICEF report “shows the extent of the grave violations of children’s rights in Nigeria and across the West and Central Africa region,” said Nguyen.
These violations must be ceased by “all parties to conflict”.
Children “must have an opportunity” to grow, learn, work and contribute to the healthy future of the country.
