One hundred and seventy-six teachers have been killed and 900 schools
destroyed in Nigeria's Borno state since Boko Haram militants
intensified their violent attacks in 2011, officials said on Thursday.
The
governor of the northeastern state Kashim Shettima revealed the
horrifying statistics in a statement to a committee attempting to make
the country's schools safer.
The Safe Schools Initiative has been
backed by former British prime minister Gordon Brown, who is the
representative of the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
Brown
pledged $10m to the scheme during last May's World Economic Forum, while
Nigeria's private sector is expected to put in $9.8m.
Although
the scheme covers the whole of Africa's most populous nation, it is
scheduled to start off in Borno and neighbouring Yobe and Adamawa, the
three states under emergency rule since May last year, and the hardest
hit by Boko Haram's five-year-old insurgency.
Boko Haram abducted
276 girls from their school in Chibok in Borno on 14 April. Fifty-seven
of the girls have escaped while the remaining 219 are thought to be
still held hostage.
The group has attacked many schools and killed hundreds of students in the northeast of the country since it began its violence.
Shettima
briefed the committee on the current state of education following the
insurgency, while security and counter-terrorism experts from donor
agencies formally presented a road-map for school safety, the statement
said.
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