Over 20,000 primary school children have been forced out of school in Benue state since the start of 2018, due to the incursion of armed militant herdsmen in several communities, says the Benue State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB).
Chairman of the board, Rev Phillip Tachin, made the disclosure after leading members of the board’s management team on an inspection of completed and ongoing primary school projects constructed under the Benue state government and the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) intervention fund, Vanguard reports.
We gathers that Tachin disclosed that out of the number of children out of school due to the herdsmen menace, 18,000 were taking refuge in various Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camps established by the state government.
He said: “The renewed herdsmen attacks in 2018 also led to the complete destruction of structures in over 50 public primary schools in the affected areas and communities of the state.
“The development is quite a huge challenge for the state government, given the amount of resources that would be required to rebuild the affected structures.”
Meanwhile, It had been previously reported that Governor Samuel Ortom claimed that militia herdsmen in Benue state killed no less than 50 security operatives in various attacks launched in the state between January to August 2018.
Ortom, in a statement by his chief press secretary, Terver Akase, said that attacks on Benue communities by militia herdsmen had only subsided due to the presence of Operation Whirl Stroke.
