A Wounded Childhood -By Jadesola Adedeji

For children, war does more than level buildings, it destroys childhood itself. And targeted attacks, especially against schools, can be likened to child abuse en masse.

The impact of war transcends all aspects of life and well-being- physical, emotional, psychological, trauma, hunger, displacement, grief and separation and of course, education. The overall effect on “personhood” and a child’s sense of the loss of hope of a future, is tragic. Hope is the last to die but war fast tracks it for children living in conflict zones around the world.

Recently, armed terrorists  stormed a girls’ school  in Borno state, North East Nigeria, in an attempted mass abduction of  46 students . This time around, security forces were able to secure and rescue the girls.  Just a couple of months previously, in the widely reported May 15th 2026 incidents, where in simultaneous attacks, at least 82 pupils were abducted in separate attacks in Oyo and Borno States, Nigeria- the students were not so lucky with the abducted children including 2 year olds! Sadly, reports indicate that two teachers were killed. After the initial outrage that this was happening yet again in our nation, the prevailing silence was deafening. After 56 days in captivity, the students in Oyo state were rescued but nothing has been heard about the fate of the other students and their teachers.

As I finally allowed the horror of these events to sink in, it triggered the emotions of 12 years ago when Boko Haram abducted school girls as some were in the midst of writing exams in Chibok, NE Nigeria. I remember weeks afterwards, as I watched my then 10 year-old fall asleep, an overwhelming sense of grief  overcame me as I imagined her being one of the girls in captivity-I wept from the depths of my soul.

As a mother, the horror of what those schoolgirls were experiencing was really too much to bear and the pain and deep sorrow that overcame me that night was something I would never forget. Of the 276 girls abducted, 90 are still missing. Boko Haram means “Western education is forbidden”, reflecting a deliberate and intentional targeting of education .

According to UNICEF , since 2014, an estimated 1,500 schools have been targeted by armed groups in northeast Nigeria, causing at least 1,280 deaths among school children and their teachers and the numbers continue to rise with many unreported around the country.

To be sure, initiatives were set up in the wake of the Chibok abductions –the Safe school initiative 2014 and the Safe school Declaration 2015 but implementation has failed  with only 37% of schools in ten high risk states having early warning systems to detect attacks and only 14% having safe, functional safety infrastructure (UNICEF’s Minimum Standards for Safe Schools (MSSS) Monitoring Report.)

Globally, nearly one in five of the world’s children now lives in a conflict zone, and in 2025, the UN verified more grave violations against them — killing, maiming, abduction, attacks on schools — than in any year since monitoring began, with Nigeria among the five worst-affected countries

According to the Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack (GCPEA), Education under Attack 2026 report , there were at least 8,566 attacks on education specifically, in 2024–2025, a more than 40% increase on 2022–2023, harming at least 10,600 students, teachers and education personnel — higher than ever recorded yet this is the floor not the ceiling,as access to wider data and reporting, are often difficult in conflict zones.  The highest incidences are reported across Colombia, DRC, Ethiopia, Haiti, Palestine and Ukraine.

The global norms and guard rails that once protected children keep crumbling as the sustained abuse of children carries on, unchallenged. Reportedly, 234 million school-aged children in crises require urgent support to access quality education — up 35 million in three years — of whom 85 million are out of school entirely.

From targeted destruction of schools in Gaza, decimated education systems in Sudan to deliberate exclusion from education for millions of girls in Afghanistan and children learning in underground metro stations in Ukraine– regardless of the mode of assault, the wound is the same.

As a mother experiencing the joy of seeing her own children thrive and fulfil their full potential, the wounds still cut deep for the many millions denied the basic human right to education-the weaponisation of education, for a child, is the weaponisation of childhood, through the deliberate denial of the person that child would have become.

Twelve years ago, I wept as I watched my daughter, Ayanfe sleep, imagining her as a captive. Today, there are mothers weeping over empty beds of the children that went to school and never came home.

Until the world commits to defending the classrooms, the interruptions will carry on.  Those with the power to stop this, must act. This goes beyond defending just physical structures of schools, but preserving the possibilities of a future that education offers.

Somewhere tonight, another mother is watching over her child, praying that war will never know her .

Jadesola Adedeji is the Co-Founder of STEM METS, an education company based in Nigeria and a Public Voices Fellow Tackling Poverty, a partnership of Acumen and The OpEd Project.