Acts of armed violence against schools and other educational centers in Haiti have increased ninefold in just one year, further evidence of the insecurity prevailing in the country following the succession of political, humanitarian and criminal emergencies that have plagued it in recent months, according to estimates by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
Humanitarian groups working with the UN agency have identified at least 72 attacks from October 2021 through the first week of February, including 13 by armed groups, resulting in the death of at least one student and the abduction of at least two aid workers.
In fact, in the first six days of this month alone, some 30 schools have closed their doors as a result of urban violence in the country and the inability of law enforcement to protect the facilities — at least 15 police officers died at the hands of gangs during the first two weeks of January alone. One in four have been closed since October of last year.
These acts of violence are overwhelmingly the work of gangs operating in Port-au-Prince, the capital, 60 percent of which is controlled by armed groups, according to the UN, whose members UNICEF accuses of indiscriminate looting in educational centers.
The gang members, regrets the UN agency, not only take educational material such as desks, chairs or blackboards, but also steal computers or photocopiers used by the administration of the centers, the solar panels that supply energy to the schools, and even the essential food supplied by the kitchens, such as bags of rice or corn, «vital for the nutritional needs of Haiti’s children».
As a result, Haiti’s children lost a day and a half of school for every week in January. At this rate, by the end of the school year at the end of June, each student will have missed 36 days of school, not to mention that when they do attend, they do so in an environment of extreme violence that makes it impossible for school activities to run smoothly.
«A child who does not go to school is a child who is exposed to recruitment by armed groups,» laments UNICEF country manager Bruno Maes, before warning that the country’s schools have lost the «protected zone» status they enjoyed in the past to become, for some time now, another target for gangs.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
