The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) says not less than 5,129 out-of-school children in Northeast Nigeria are currently battling mental health challenges as a result of Boko Haram insurgency in the region.
The UNICEF which revealed this in its latest statistics on Monday, said over 300,000 children have been killed in the 12 years insurgency in the region, adding that over one million persons have been displaced within the period under review.
UNICEF Representative in Nigeria, Peter Hawkins, advocated that every stakeholder must ensure attacks against children stop immediately.
“The scars of conflict are real and enduring for children. Too many children in North East Nigeria are falling victim to a conflict they did not start,” he said.
“In the meantime, we are committed to working with our partners to provide psychosocial and other support to conflict-affected children, so they can regain their childhood and restart their lives.”
Hawkins said the EU-funded Support to Early Recovery and Resilience Project, implemented by UNICEF, was aimed at improving the mental health of the 5,129 out-of-school children in Borno State.
He also said that stress and violence had been linked to poor brain development, depression and poor self-esteem and children exposed to conflict and violence were at risk of long-term mental health and psychosocial issues.
Hawkins said the conflict-affected out-of-school children in the state, which cut across six local government areas were receiving services including mental health support in safe spaces to strengthen their well-being, resilience, literacy skills and self-reliance.
The project, according to him, also supported vulnerable children across Borno with protection and health services, vocational and basic literacy skills, access to justice and security, under a holistic humanitarian intervention.
He said the intervention had so far provided 15,552 out-of-school children with vocational training; 1,610 out-of-school children with literacy and numeracy skills and 5,194 children enrolled into integrated Qur’anic schools across focus LGAs.
The EU Head of Cooperation, Cecile Tassin-Pelzer, said, addressing the psychosocial well-being and development of children and teachers in conflict situations is an important part of re-establishing education provision and enabling children to re-enter schools safely.
