Almost ten percent of the schools attacked by Vladimir Putin’s forces were totally destroyed, according to Save The Children
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A police officer checks a school destroyed after a Russian attack on the city of Marinka, Donetsk region, Ukraine (REUTERS/Anna Kudriavtseva)
The NGO Save the Children estimated that 1,888 Ukrainian schools have been attacked since the start of the war on February 24, a figure higher than that recorded in the last seven years, since the outbreak of the war in Crimea, the prelude to the current conflict.
According to data provided by the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, the figure is more than double that recorded between 2014 and 2021< /b>, when some 750 educational centers were damaged, destroyed or forced to close their doors.
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Of the 1,888 schools attacked since February, some 180 – almost ten percent – have been totally destroyed, while the remaining more than 1,700 have suffered some damage. More Half of the centers attacked are in the eastern part of Ukraine, according to Save the Children in a statement.
“The fact that Ukraine is facing record attacks on schools should outrage the entire international community. The risk to the lives and future of children increases with each new day of war”, assured the general director of the organization in Spain, Andrés Conde.
“ This war must end now,” Conde claimed, alluding to a conflict that has already interrupted the educational cycle of the nearly 7.5 million children who lived in Ukraine at the beginning of the year.
With the outbreak of war, more than 6.8 million people fled the country, 50% of those under the age of 18.
Nearly 10% of the schools attacked by Russia were completely destroyed (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
Currently, all educational centers in Ukraine are closed. However, Save the Children has helped the Ukrainian authorities improve the country’s online learning system so that children can still access distance learning.
“The fact that schools in Ukraine have been bombed twice as often in the last hundred days than in the seven years of conflict prior to this escalation is indicative of the level of violence today”, said Conde, who denounced that “every attack on a school is an attack on children.”
In this context, Save the Children regretted that the recent fighting has exacerbated a humanitarian situation already serious in itself, especially in eastern parts of the country. Before this escalation of violence, many children in eastern Ukraine were already “too scared to attend school and distressed by the presence of armed soldiers in and around their schools,” the organization said.
Thus, Save the Children called on the parties to the conflict to cease attacks and threats against schools and to refrain from any military use of educational facilities. “The presence of the military or other armed groups in schools damages the facilities, interrupts the education of students and can provoke attacks by opposing forces”, warned the NGO.
(With information from Europa Press)