More and more attacks on students and teachers

By Rodney Reynolds

NEW YORK | June 28, 2024 (IDN) – Educational institutions around the world, as well as students, teachers and academics, are subject to attacks, mainly during armed conflicts and civil wars.

According to the Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attacks (GCPEA), there were approximately 6,000 attacks on educational institutions in 2022 and 2023, an increase of almost 20 percent compared to the previous two years.

New report Education at risk of attack 2024, published last week, a list of more than 10,000 students, teachers and academic staff who have been injured, wounded or killed in attacks during armed conflicts around the world.

GCPEA researchers recorded the highest number of attacks in Palestine, Ukraine and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) over the past two years.

“In every country, hundreds of schools have been subjected to threats, looting, arson, attacks with improvised explosive devices or shelling or airstrikes.”

Attacks increased in Palestine, Sudan, Syria and Ukraine, while the GCPEA observed a decreasing trend in the Central African Republic, Libya, Mali and Mozambique.

In addition to the deaths and injuries, the report said, attacks on education damaged or destroyed hundreds of educational institutions, forcing their temporary or permanent closure and causing weeks or months of lost learning opportunities.

“Some students also suffered psychological harm from the attacks or were afraid to return to school,” the coalition said.

Girls and students with disabilities have been particularly affected by attacks on education. Both groups had more difficulty continuing their education after the attacks.

Researchers recorded more than 475 attacks on Palestinian schools in 2023, many of them involving air and ground attacks using explosive weapons. Attacks peaked after hostilities escalated in October, when Hamas-led militants launched a wide-ranging assault on Israel and the Israeli military carried out a massive military offensive in the Gaza Strip.

According to the Occupied Palestinian Territory, attacks continued until 2024; in the Gaza Strip by April, all universities and more than 80 percent of schools were damaged or destroyed.

Explosive weapons, which accounted for about a third of all reported attacks on education worldwide in 2022 and 2023, were particularly devastating, killing or injuring countless students and teachers and destroying hundreds of schools and universities.

In just one example, fragments of an attack on a women’s dormitory at El Geneina University in West Darfur, Sudan, in June 2023 left a woman blind in one eye.

“Attacks on education include the bombing and burning of schools and universities by armed forces and non-state armed groups, as well as the killing, wounding, rape, kidnapping, arbitrary arrest and recruitment of students and teachers in or near educational establishments during armed conflict,” it says. report.

In some cases, girls’ schools and students have been attacked in order to prevent girls from studying and participating in education. In other cases, schools, students and teachers have suffered indiscriminate violence or have been targeted for political, military, ideological or other reasons.

Armed forces and non-state armed groups also occupy schools and universities, using them for example as barracks, detention centres or firing points, exposing students to danger and violating their right to education. The report found that schools used for military purposes expose educational institutions to an increased risk of attack by opposing forces or groups.

Kidnappings of students and teachers continued to occur in Nigeria during the reporting period, although the number of such attacks decreased compared to previous years.

Meanwhile, in 2022 and 2023, large numbers of students and teachers were threatened, kidnapped, injured or killed in Palestine, Cameroon and Iraq.

Parties to armed conflicts have also targeted schools to recruit children in the DRC, Somalia, Syria and Yemen. In Colombia, at least 25 students were admitted to schools or along school routes in 2022 and 2023, many of them indigenous students.

Armed forces, security forces or armed groups were also reported to be responsible for sexual violence in or on the way to or from schools and universities in at least eight countries, including Cameroon, Niger and South Sudan.
Attacks on schools accounted for more than half of all attacks on education and military targets reported by the coalition. The countries most affected were Ukraine and Palestine – in 2022-2023 there were approximately 700 attacks on schools in Ukraine and at least 640 in Palestine, followed by the DRC, Burkina Faso and Yemen.

Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, airstrikes, shelling, and drone strikes damaged schools, including those serving blind students, with particular emphasis on eastern and southern Ukraine.

In 2022 and 2023, the use of schools and universities for military purposes by armed forces and non-state armed groups increased significantly. The coalition found more than 1,000 reports of occupied schools and universities in 30 countries, an increase in both the number of incidents and the contexts involved.

Compared to “Education Under Attack 2022,” which included approximately 570 such cases, increases were reported in Afghanistan, Colombia, Nigeria, Sudan and other countries.

Over the past two years, university buildings, students and academics have also come under fire, with over 360 incidents reported. A quarter of the reported attacks were on university facilities, with the rest targeting students and staff. About 760 students and university staff were injured, abducted or killed, and over 1,700 were detained or arrested.

GCPEA researchers also found preliminary links between climate change and attacks on education. For example, in Burkina Faso and Mali – where desertification, land degradation and conflict are linked in complex ways – armed groups are targeting school cafeterias and cafeterias to loot food stores.

As of May 2024, 120 countries have endorsed the Safe Schools Declaration, a political commitment to protect education in armed conflict. By signing the Declaration, countries commit to taking concrete steps to protect education, including complying with international humanitarian and human rights law and the Guidelines for Protecting Schools and Universities from Military Use in Armed Conflict.

In line with the Declaration, governments and their partners have made tangible improvements in law and practice, for example by issuing military orders prohibiting armed forces from using schools for military purposes.

“In places like Gaza, in addition to the horrific loss of life, education itself is under attack,” said Lisa Chung Bender, executive director of GCPEA. “School and university systems have been closed and in some cases completely destroyed. This will have long-term consequences for social and economic recovery, as the very infrastructure essential to peace and stability comes under attack.” (IDN-InDepthNews)

Photo credit: GCPEA