UNICEF recently reported that growing conflicts and political disturbances in the Middle East and Northern Africa have deprived over 13 million children from schooling. The report, titled ‘Education Under Fire’, focuses on the impact of violence on schoolchildren and the educational systems in nine countries that have been directly or indirectly affected by acts of violence in the past few years. It is actually a serious attempt to face the real ugliness of what has befallen children as a result of adults’ actions.
The report also stressed that destructive attacks on school and education infrastructure ultimately prevented many children from attending classes, and this calls for immediate implementation of international resolutions issued by the UN. One must also not neglect the fact that conflicts have been forcing thousands of teachers to quit their jobs and preventing thousands of frightened parents from sending their kids to schools.
According to the report, over 700,000 children amongst Syrian refugees in Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon cannot go to school because the educational infrastructure in those countries is too overwhelmed and cannot absorb any more students. This is an alarming fact that calls for the international community’s intervention to take this problem into consideration as an urgent concern that needs immediate solutions without any delay to save human beings from humiliation, hunger and displacement. All conflicts in the east and west should undoubtedly come to an end or at least be put aside for a while.
We must activate the role of international organizations that have been lately more like empty vessels spending time and exerting efforts to solve only the problems of the UN Security Council’s five member states – the states that have gone way beyond disagreement and have become addicted to proxy or direct wars. The world is becoming a fierce wrestling arena.