Wednesday, January 7, 2015
Islamic State School Closures: UN Says 670,000 Children Deprived Of Education
School
closures ordered by the Islamic State militant group have resulted in
an estimated 670,000 children in Syria being deprived of an education,
according to the United Nations. The U.N. children's agency said Tuesday
that the group’s demand that schools stay closed until their
curriculums could be changed was yet another reminder of the “terrible
price” Syria’s children were paying amid the country’s chaos, Reuters reported.
The Islamic State, an al Qaeda offshoot that has seized
territory in Syria and Iraq, began shutting schools in areas in eastern
Syria in November. The closures were ordered pending a religious
revision of the curriculum. "In December there was a decree of the
Islamic State ordering the stoppage of education in areas under its
control," UNICEF spokesman Christophe Boulierac said in a Tuesday news
briefing in Geneva. "Islamic State said that the curriculum needed to be
reshaped or re-conceived."
At least 160 children were killed and 343 injured in the 68
reported attacks on schools in Syria last year. These figures are
likely an underestimate due to the challenges of obtaining data,
Boulierac said. Between 1.3 million and 1.6 million Syrian children have
been prevented from attending school as a result of the now five-year
civil war, which has killed more than 200,000 and displaced half the
country’s population, according to Agence France-Presse.
"In addition to lack of school access, attacks on schools,
teachers and students are further horrific reminders of the terrible
price Syria's children are paying in a crisis approaching its fifth
year," Hanaa Singer, a UNICEF representative in Syria, said.
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