Mali crisis disrupts education of 700,000 kids

The education of some 700,000 children in Mali has been disrupted by the crisis rocking the Sahelian country, the UN Children Emergency Fund (UNICEF) has said.

In a statement, UNICEF said that there was an urgent need to rebuild schools, train teachers and provide learning facilities in Northern Mali.

Northern Mali had been occupied by radical Islamists after fighting broke out in January, 2012 between government forces and Tuareg rebels.

The conflict displaced hundreds of thousands of people and prompted the Malian Government to request assistance from France to stop the military advance of extremist groups.

Since the violence began over a year ago, at least 115 schools in the north have been closed, destroyed, looted and sometimes contaminated with unexploded ordnance.

Of the 700,000 children affected, 200,000 still have no access to school, UNICEF said.

The UN organisation said that many teachers, who were among those displaced, had not returned to the northern part of the country.

It added that the teachers were currently working in the already overcrowded schools in the south, which could not cope with the amount of displaced students from the north.

“When a teacher is afraid to teach and when a student is afraid to go to school, the whole education is at risk,” the statement quoted UNICEF’s Representative in Mali, Françoise Ackermans , as saying.

The statement said that only one in three schools in the north is functioning, while in some towns in the region, all the schools were closed, as was the case in Kidal.