Kenya terrorism crushes kids’ dreams of school
LAMU, Kenya – Ten-year-old Said Sefu hasn’t gone to school for three years.
He’s not playing hooky. Local officials closed his school and turned it into a military base after a spate of attacks by al-Shabab, the al-Qaeda-affiliated group terrorizing Kenya, Somalia and other East African countries.
“There are no teachers. When you go to school you only see soldiers patrolling,” the boy said as he played in his small house in this coastal town in northern Kenya near the Somali border.
Dozens of schools in the Boni National Reserve have been closed as long as four years since al-Shabab began using the lush region as a staging ground for attacks on police stations, schools, government buildings and travelers. As a result, 1,000 students in Lamu and thousands of others across the region sit idle at home or in refugee camps, the Kenyan government says.
Many children still wear their school uniforms because they have few other clothes.
“I wanted to become a teacher when I grow up,” Said said. “But we are not going to school like other children. ... I don’t think I will achieve my dream.”
The vast forest has been home to one of al-Shabab’s elite units, the Jaysh Al-Ayman, which has launched attacks in retaliation for Kenya’s deployment of soldiers in Somalia in 2012 to bring peace there. Hundreds of civilians have been killed, the Kenyan government says. From last May to November, the militants killed more than 30 police officers.
Kenyan officials have tried to assure residents that security forces are winning the fight against the militants and that attacks are less frequent. “We have the willingness and focus,” Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i said last month.
His words have satisfied parents who are demanding that their children be kept safe. “We hope to see our chil- dren go to school,” said Abdullahi Zuberi, whose three children have not gone to their school since it closed in 2015.
Gilbert Wekesa, a teacher in Garissa, where al-Shabab fighters killed 147 people at a university in 2015, said he was reluctant to go back to work after witnessing a raid that killed a teacher at his school near the Somali border last year.
“We fear for our lives. That’s why we left,” he said. “It’s one of the most dangerous places to work, especially when you are a Christian.”
The Kenya National Union of Teachers defended teachers who refuse to work. “We cannot allow teachers who work along the border to risk their lives,” said Abdirizak Hussein, a union leader in Garissa.
Some parents try to home-school their children. But the youngsters would prefer to sit in a classroom.
Sudd Jabali, 16, said, “I want to go back to school and get an education so that I can help my poor family.”