The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
On Wednesday, the Borno state government announced that all boarding secondary schools outside Maiduguri and the town of Biu would be closed indefinitely with immediate effect.
Muhammad Bulama, the Borno commissioner for home affairs, information and culture, said on Wednesday the decision was taken last week after a Boko Haram attack in Rann on March 1.
Three aid workers and eight security personnel were killed in the attack on the remote town near the border with Cameroon, which led to the withdrawal of aid agencies.
Schools have previously been shut in the wake of deadly attacks in Buni Yadi, Yobe state, when more than 40 students at a boys’ boarding school were killed in a Boko Haram attack on March 1.
– Aid resumes –
Bulama said “urgent and immediate measures” were being taken to improve security but the closures are the latest disruption to schooling in an area already hit by low levels of education.
At the start of the new academic year in September last year, UNICEF said at least 57 percent of schools in Borno remained closed.
It warned the situation threatened to create “a lost generation of children, threatening their and the country’s future”.
Meanwhile, the United Nations said it had resumed humanitarian operations in Rann after a three-week suspension, although overnight stays remain banned until security improves.
“The authorisation by the United Nations for flights to resume to Rann for aid workers was taken on Monday. The first flights went on Tuesday,” said UN spokeswoman in Abuja Samantha Newport.
UN agencies, and others including Doctors Without Borders, provide life-saving food distribution, medical care, shelter and sanitation programmes to some 80,000 people in Rann.
