In its most recent annual report on children and armed conflict, the United Nations confirmed the abduction of 4,278 children in 21 countries last year, but it omitted to recognise massive kidnappings in northwest and north-central Nigeria documented by one of its own organisations in 2021.
According to the study published by the UN’s Children and Armed Conflict office, over a quarter of all abductions last year — 1,030 — were recorded in Somalia, the nation with the greatest toll. The General Assembly designated the office in 1996 to advocate for the protection of children who get unknowingly involved in hostilities. Virginia Gamba, a former UN official who specialised in disarmament in her native Argentina, heads the office as a special representative of UN Secretary-General António Guterres. Her team conducts the research for the study, yet it is distributed under his name.
Although Somalia’s data are included in the analysis, at least 1,004 kidnappings from 25 school raids in northwest and north-central Nigeria recorded by Unicef as of November 2021 were not included.
It is a bleak, numbers-heavy compendium of some of the most heinous crimes committed against children in crisis zones, including abductions, recruiting of children as armed troops, murdering, maiming, sexual assault, and attacks on schools and hospitals. (Maiming was the most common atrocity, caused by land mines and other explosive devices.) The research identifies which nations should be prioritised by the UN in its mission to safeguard and advocate for children’s human rights in conflict zones.
Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, made stunning headlines and sparked a global movement in the aftermath of the 2014 kidnapping of hundreds of schoolgirls in Chibok, Borno state (in the northeast), capturing the attention of Michelle Obama, the American first lady at the time. But the issue, which hasn’t gone away, has returned to the shadows.
“I don’t enjoy speculating. If I had to guess, I’d say the international community hasn’t taken seriously the fact that terrorism has spread from northeast Nigeria to other parts of northwest and north-central Nigeria,” said Confidence McHarry, a security expert with SBM Intelligence, a geopolitical analysis firm, from Nigeria. “As you may recall, schools were even closed as a result of the assaults.”