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EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

Schools in Burkina Faso shut over extremist attacks

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In Burkina Faso, a country struggling to contain extremist violence, education is one of the victims of the insurgency, with hundreds of schools closed, teachers in hiding and pupils kept indoors over the fear of attacks. In the conflict-ridden north, more than three years of assaults and threats by extremists have led to the closure of more than 300 schools, according to estimates, with the east of the West African nation now also seeing school closures. “They (the extremists) are slowly killing education,” said Kassoum Ouedraogo, who used to teach in a primary school in the small town of Nenebouro, near the border with Mali.


One of his colleagues was murdered in 2016 and last year teachers felt the security threat was so dangerous that they shut the school.


Ouedraogo moved to the northern regional capital Ouahigouya where, he says, he “lives with fear in his stomach”.


“They do not want ‘French’ schools... they want schools in Arabic,” he said.


Burkina Faso is part of the vast Sahel region, which has turned into a hotbed of violent extremism and lawlessness since chaos engulfed Libya in 2011, the extremists’ takeover of northern Mali in 2012 and the rise of Boko Haram in northern Nigeria.


Despite international efforts to create a transnational anti-exremist military operation, named the G5 Sahel force, the situation is getting worse. A recent report submitted to the UN Security Council warned that security had “deteriorated rapidly over the last six months” in the area between Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, with attacks spreading to eastern Burkina Faso.


According to an official report in September, 229 people have been killed in attacks in Burkina Faso since 2015.


In the eastern town of Matiakoali, a dozen schools were forced to close at the end of October due to threats of violence, teachers and local security forces said.


Extremists visited mosques in nearby villages and warned that the staff had to leave, a teacher said on condition of anonymity.


“The teachers from neighbouring villages got together and we decided to leave,” he said, explaining that they moved to other cities for safety. The growing boldness of these fighters in the former French colony reflects the government’s apparent inability to protect its citizens across vast stretches of the country. Teachers and unions warn that thousands of children face years without access to schools unless the government steps up the fight against the growing terror. — AFP


Patrick Fort


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