Indication emerged yesterday of the estimate number of students that may have lost their lives to the ongoing insurgency plaguing the Northeastern part of Nigeria.
According to the Northern Students Association of Nigeria (NSAN) which gave the figure, over 500 students have lost their lives in direct attacks on schools and students in the region within the last 3 years, excluding a significant number of students receiving treatment for various degree injuries, some of which are critical. The leader of the association, Musa Terrang, said the group compiled the number of students killed through their committees attached to the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) and Red Crescent Nigeria.
Boko Haram, the group which had claimed responsibility for the attacks, considered Western education a sin and has targeted schools, students and teachers in the troubled region. Scores of students at Federal Government College, Buni Yadi lost their lives when the group raided the school in a pre-dawn attack, in the same year, 2014, the group also claim responsibility for the kidnapping of over 200 school girls in Chibok, Borno State, most of the girls are yet to regain freedom or return to their families.
While schools and students may have bear less brunt of the group's attack, its mantra has always been "Western education is a sin" thereby making everything education their primary targets and due to lack of official figure by government of the group's impact on education, the figure released by NSAN offers an indication of the scale of damages to the education sector in the region.
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