{"id":181133,"date":"2021-02-19T22:27:33","date_gmt":"2021-02-19T20:27:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-newsroom.com\/press\/un-chief-condemns-attack-on-school-in-nigeria?lang=en"},"modified":"2021-02-19T22:27:33","modified_gmt":"2021-02-19T20:27:33","slug":"un-chief-condemns-attack-on-school-in-nigeria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/un-chief-condemns-attack-on-school-in-nigeria\/","title":{"rendered":"UN chief condemns attack on school in Nigeria"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"image_wrap\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.africa-newsroom.com\/files\/thumb\/74562addb295f6c\/600\/418\" alt=\"UN News\"\/><\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>The United Nations Secretary-General has strongly condemned Wednesday&rsquo;s attack on a boarding school in north-central Nigeria&nbsp;in which one student was killed and several students, as well as relatives and staff, abducted.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>According to reports, gunmen stormed the Government Science College Kagara, in the Niger state of Nigeria, at around 2 am local time. Many students are also said to be unaccounted for, though the number is unclear and the information has yet to be confirmed.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>In a&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sg\/en\/content\/sg\/note-correspondents\/2021-02-17\/note-correspondents-%E2%80%93-response-questions-nigeria\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">note<\/a>&nbsp;issued by his spokesperson on Wednesday,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sg\/\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Ant\u00f3nio Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations\" rel=\"noopener\">Secretary-General Ant&oacute;nio Guterres<\/a>&nbsp;reiterated that &ldquo;attacks on schools and other educational facilities are abhorrent and unacceptable&rdquo;.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The UN chief called on Nigerian authorities to &ldquo;spare no efforts in rescuing those abducted and holding to account those responsible for this act&rdquo;, the statement added.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Attacks a violation of children&rsquo;s rights&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The UN Children&rsquo;s Fund (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.unicef.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"United Nations Children\u2019s Fund\" rel=\"noopener\">UNICEF<\/a>) also&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.unicef.org\/nigeria\/press-releases\/statement-unicef-nigeria-representative-peter-hawkins-attack-government-science\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">denounced<\/a>&nbsp;the attack &ldquo;in the strongest possible terms&rdquo; and called for the immediate and unconditional release of any children who may be missing, and their safe return to their families.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Attacks on schools are a violation of children&rsquo;s rights. Children should feel safe at home and at school at all times &ndash; and parents should not need to worry for the safety of their children when they send them off to school in the morning&rdquo;, Peter Hawkins, UNICEF Nigeria Representative, said in statement.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;&ldquo;We acknowledge the efforts being taken by the Government of Nigeria for the safe return of any missing children&rdquo;, Mr. Hawkins added.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The latest attack comes about two months after more than&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/news.un.org\/en\/story\/2020\/12\/1079942\">300 students were abducted<\/a>&nbsp;in a similar attack on a school in Kankara, Katsina state, about 280 kilometres (173 miles) north. The students abducted in that attack have since been&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/news.un.org\/en\/story\/2020\/12\/1080472\">released<\/a>. &nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The abductions are a grim reminder of the April 2014&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/news.un.org\/en\/story\/2014\/04\/466312-un-calls-immediate-release-abducted-school-girls-north-eastern-nigeria\">kidnapping of 276 girls from their school dormitory<\/a>&nbsp;in Chibok by Boko Haram insurgents. Many of them remain missing.<\/p>\n<p><i>Distributed by <a href='https:\/\/apo-opa.com' target='_blank' rel=\"noopener\">APO Group<\/a> on behalf of UN News.<\/i><\/p>\n<div class=\"well well-sm\"><b>Media files<\/b><br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-newsroom.com\/files\/large\/ffe41a2e362442b\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.africa-newsroom.com\/files\/large\/ffe41a2e362442b\" alt=\"UN News\" style=\"max-width:500px;\"\/><\/a><br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-newsroom.com\/files\/download\/ffe41a2e362442b\">Download logo<\/a><\/div>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-newsroom.com\/\">Source: Africa Newsroom &#8211; APO<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The United Nations Secretary-General has strongly condemned Wednesday&rsquo;s attack on a boarding school in north-central Nigeria&nbsp;in which one student was killed and several students, as well as relatives and staff, abducted.&nbsp; According to reports, gunmen stormed the Government Science College Kagara, in the Niger state of Nigeria, at around 2 am local time. Many students [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":181134,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4584],"tags":[4585],"class_list":{"0":"post-181133","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-africa-news-2","8":"tag-apo","9":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/un-chief-condemns-attack-on-school-in-nigeria.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181133\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/181134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}