© UNICEF/NYHQ2009-0508/ParadelaChildren wait with their families to register at the Jalala camp in Mardan district, in Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province.

Last year in Afghanistan there were nearly 300 documented attacks on schools, killing 92 people and injuring 169. In Pakistan, 172 government and private schools, particularly girls’ schools, have been destroyed in the Swat Valley district since 2007.

(c) UNICEF/NYHQ20071087/Noorani
A girl reads aloud in a tent classroom at Phool-e-Rangeena Government School in the north-western city of Herat, Afghanistan.

NEW YORK, USA- Despite a deepening global economic crisis, member states were urged to increase both attention and aid to education in countries that have been hit by natural disasters or conflict.

At UN headquarters, UNICEF Deputy Executive Director Hilde F. Johnson (centre) moderates a panel on making education a priority in emergency and post-emergency situations. At left is UNESCO Assistant Director General for Education Nicholas Burnett.
©UNICEF/NYHQ2009-0209/Markisz

NEW YORK, USA, 18 March 2009 – The United Nations General Assembly hosted a thematic debate on education in emergencies today, with participation by representatives of Member States, academia and civil society, as well as UN experts, teachers and students.

In Kandahar Province, Afghanistan, a page from a school notebook that bears the UNICEF logo lies amid other burnt papers and books.
©UNICEF/NYHQ2003-0557/Brooks

KABUL, Afghanistan, 14 November 2008 – UNICEF has condemned the increasing number of attacks on schools and students in Afghanistan. A recent acid attack on 15 female students walking to school in the southern city of Kandahar blinded two of the girls and injured two others.