Violence caused by Boko Haram keeping more than 1 million children out of school

(Image credit: Boureima Hama/AFP/Getty Images)

last updated 22 December 2015

More than one million children in Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon, and Niger are unable to attend school due to Boko Haram's insurgency across the region.

"It's a staggering number," Manuel Fontaine, UNICEF's West and Central Africa Regional Director, said in a statement. "The conflict has been a huge blow for education in the region, and violence has kept many children out of the classroom for more than a year, putting them at risk of dropping out of school altogether."

On Monday, UNICEF announced that about 600 teachers have been killed in Nigeria due to the conflict, which has displaced millions of people, and just one of the 135 schools that closed down in northern Cameroon re-opened this year, Time reports. Already, 11 million children don't have access to an education in the region, and in an attempt to get some kids learning, UNICEF has distributed educational materials to 132,000 children and set up temporary school spaces for 67,000. The agency said it has only received 44 percent of the funding it needs to provide humanitarian relief for children in the area.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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