Armed groups stop children going to school in Central African Republic
Children in conflicts, Education in emergencies
Children at a school in the CAR capital Bangui
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Thousands of children in Central African Republic are being prevented from starting the academic year by armed groups which are occupying schools and installing barriers nearby, the United Nations has said.
Children across the country returned to class last week but听insecurity in some areas outside the capital Bangui has听disrupted the start of the school year and stopped 10,000 pupils听from resuming their education, according to the UN children鈥檚听agency UNICEF.
Central African Republic has been beset by violence between听mainly Muslim Seleka rebels and Christian anti-balaka militias听since the rebels ousted the then president in early 2013.
鈥淪chools are not part of the conflict, they have no听political affiliation,鈥 said Donaig Le Du, chief of听communications for UNICEF in CAR.
鈥淣o child should be prevented from going to school by听conflict,鈥 she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone.
Students taking their exams at a Bangui school in 2014
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The country鈥檚 UN peacekeeping mission, MINUSCA, this week听called on armed groups to leave the schools they are occupying,听and said it would use force to remove them if necessary.
One in five primary schools, around 400, are closed and a听third of children are not in class 鈥 with displacement, a lack听of teachers, and insecurity to blame, according to UNICEF.
The conflict has forced almost a million people 鈥 a fifth of听the population 鈥 to flee their homes, leaving the impoverished听nation divided along ethnic and religious lines.
Former prime minister Faustin-Archange Touadera won a听presidential election in February that was meant to help the听country emerge from its bloody past. However, rebels and militia听fighters still stalk much of the nation outside of the capital.
Seleka rebels this month killed 26 villagers in the village听of Ndomete, not far from the town of Kaga-Bandoro, about 220 miles north of Bangui, in the country鈥檚 worst bloodshed in听recent months, a spokesman for the presidency said.
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