Middle East Conflicts Deprive 13 Million Children Of Education

Wars, violence, and other conflicts and crises in the Middle East have deprived an estimated 13 million children of a proper education, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

The UN agency published a report on Thursday, titled “Education under Fire: How Conflict in the Middle East is Depriving Children of their Schooling,” describing and listing the problems children throughout the region are facing, and why they are not receiving the schooling and education they rightfully deserve.

“More than 13 million children are not attending school in countries being affected – either directly or indirectly – by armed conflict,” the agency warned in the first page of its report, after displaying a picture of a “war-damaged classroom at a school in Gaza City” and “a pool of blood at the entrance of the Saeed Ansari school in the Syrian city of Aleppo.”

The Guardian listed some of the countries where much of the 13 million children in the Middle East are out of school. In Syria, the number reached 2.7 million. In Iraq, 3 million children are not receiving an education. Over three million children in Sudan are also out of school. And in Libya and Yemen, each facing massive civil wars, over 2 million children in each country are not receiving any proper education.

The report went on to mention other horrifying statistics of education in the Middle East, including the fact that “more than 8,850 schools in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Libya” are no longer open for students either because “they have been damaged, destroyed, are sheltering displaced families, or are occupied by parties of the conflicts.”

The UNICEF report also mentioned that, not only were schools closed because of the various crises affecting the different countries of the region, but some schools were themselves attacked during violent clashes.

“In 2014 alone, there were 214 attacks on schools in the region.”

According to the Guardian, the UNICEF report mentioned that the education systems in eight countries have affected, either directly or indirectly by the wars and violent conflicts in the Middle East, including Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Sudan, Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey. The territories of the Palestinian Authority and Gaza, still awaiting UN Security Council approval as the nation of Palestine, are also severely affected by the educational crisis.

UNICEF’s Middle East and North Africa regional director Peter Salama said the problem was far worse than just a number of schools lost and a number of children growing up without sufficient knowledge.

“It’s not just the physical damage being done to schools, but the despair felt by a generation of schoolchildren who see their hopes and futures shattered,” the BBC quoted him as saying.

Unless the growing trend is reversed, and violence in the Middle East ends, the future for the 13 million children and possibly millions more will prove to be even grimmer than it already is.

[Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images]