P-to-P, March 27, 2024 [AlterPresse] — The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) speaks out against the arson of a school in the center of the capital, Port-au-Prince, by heavily armed groups on Monday March 25 2024, in a press release dated Wednesday March 27, 2024 of which the online agency AlterPresse was informed.
The fire at this school, called the Nau Brothers Mixed College, deprives more than 1,000 children of their right to education, denounces Unicef.
Several clinics and pharmacies were also looted and burned on the evening of Monday March 25, 2024, in the vicinity of the Hospital of the State University of Haiti (Hueh), on Avenue Monseigneur Guilloux.
Armed groups set fire to 23 classrooms at the Nau Brothers Mixed College, after entering its premises located on Rue du Centre, underlines Unicef, which calls for an end, once and for all, to these armed attacks against children and families.
The representative of Unicef in Haiti, the Belgian Bruno Maes, sees it as a violation of children’s rights and international humanitarian law.
Children should not live in constant fear of such attacks on schools, which should be “permanently safe and protected spaces”, he said, pointing to an increase in recent months in the number of schools having been forced to close their doors due to violence and crime.
“By the end of January (2024), around 900 schools had been temporarily closed, depriving around 200,000 children of their right to education. The threats to school security are particularly worrying in the metropolitan area of Port-au-Prince and in the north of Artibonite,” notes UNICEF.
Education must be recognized as a necessity, a question of survival and a key to social stability, and not as an option, in a country like Haiti facing increasingly complex conflicts and instability, argues Bruno Maes .
All parties are also urged to protect students, educators, parents and school infrastructure, in accordance with the Safe Schools Declaration, endorsed by more than 111 countries around the world, including Haiti.
In the context of an alarming increase in armed violence, which is hitting Haiti, more than 125 thousand children, particularly in the departments of Artibonite and West, where the metropolitan area of the capital, Port-au-Prince, is located, would be at risk of severe acute malnutritionalerted the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), in a press release dated Tuesday March 26, 2024. [emb rc apr 27/03/2024 13:00]
