13M Children Out Of School İn Mideast, N. Africa

About 13 million children are out of school due to conflict and political upheaval across the Middle East and North Africa, UN's children agency, UNICEF, said Thursday.



The UNICEF report "Education under Fire" has underlined the impact of violence on school children and education systems in six countries -- Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Sudan and the State of Palestine. In addition to that, Syrian refugee children in Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey have been indirectly impacted by violence.



More than 700,000 Syrian refugee children in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, are unable to attend school because "the overburdened national education infrastructure cannot cope with the extra student load," the report said. 



"In Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Libya alone, nearly 9,000 schools are out of use because they have been damaged, destroyed, are being used to shelter displaced civilians or have been taken over by parties to the conflict," the report said. - Cenevre