The headteacher says the school just outside the town of Foubé in northern Burkina Faso, had closed after an attack by armed men in the area. “A lot of schools have been torched. Teachers have been attacked and some even killed,” says Samuel Sawadogo, explaining that most of his staff fled in the wake of the raid.”When a teacher is killed, no-one does anything – so we have to save ourselves.”
In the three areas affected by an upsurge in violence in Burkina Faso, 1,111 out of 2,869 schools have closed in recent months. These regions – the North, the Sahel and the East – are in the north of the country that borders Mali and Niger where jihadist militants have operated for several years. In the province of Soum, in Sahel Region, 352 schools are now closed. More than 150,000 children are affected by these closures – a staggering number in a country where education is already an issue. In 2016, only 57.9% of children finished primary school.
Insecurity in the country is not just linked to Islamist militancy and in the camp of Barsalogho, in North Central Region, more than 1,000 people have arrived recently after fleeing inter-communal violence. More than half of those are children and in the two emergency classrooms that have been set up, maybe 100 children overall.
Worsening and spreading insecurity in the country is taking a deep toll on children. When children miss out on school – especially in times of conflict – not only are they unable to learn the skills they need to build peaceful and prosperous communities; they also become vulnerable to horrific forms of exploitation including sexual abuse and forced recruitment into armed groups,” said Henrietta Fore, executive director of the UN children’s agency.