A new United Nations report has ranked Nigeria as the fourth country in the world with the highest number of violent attacks on school children during armed conflicts.
The 2024 UN Secretary-General’s report on children and armed conflict, released in 2025, revealed 41,370 verified attacks. This figure marks the highest number of child-related violations recorded in almost 30 years.
According to the report, Nigeria comes after Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and Somalia in cases of child-related violence.
In 2024 alone, Israel recorded 8,554 violations, DRC had 4,043, Somalia 2,568, Nigeria 2,436, and Haiti 2,269.
The UN noted that while armed groups carried out nearly half of the attacks, government forces were mostly responsible for killings, injuries, attacks on schools and hospitals, and blocking humanitarian access.
The report also found that attacks on schools increased globally by 44% between 2022 and 2023. During this same period, the use of schools for military purposes grew by 20%. More than 10,000 students and teachers were killed, kidnapped, injured, or arrested.
Virginia Gamba, the UN Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, said that children in war zones are being denied their childhoods as governments and armed groups continue to break international laws.
The report further revealed that over 3,000 children were imprisoned for suspected ties to armed groups, showing an increase from the previous year. Gamba stressed that these children should be treated mainly as victims and offered alternatives to detention.
The report recommended full application of the Safe Schools Declaration and urged nations to build stronger education systems that can withstand conflict and violence.
The report’s release comes just before a high-level meeting in Geneva to observe the International Day to Protect Education from Attack.
Nigeria signed the Safe Schools Declaration in 2018, launched a violence-free schools policy in 2021, and set up the National Safe Schools Response Coordination Centre to oversee security efforts.
However, challenges remain, as enrollment under the program only reached about 11,000 by mid-2025.
