HE communities pay high price in times of conflict – Report

Attacks and violence on higher education in Africa were frequent and widespread in 2022 and 2023 when university students, lecturers, professors and other higher education staff were killed, injured, abducted, arrested and suffered sexual violence, according to the Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack (GCPEA).

GCPEA’s report, Education Under Attack 2024, which was released on 20 June 2024, notes that the military use of facilities of universities and other tertiary institutions on the continent also increased compared to the two previous years.

Globally, these incidents increased by nearly 20% compared to the two previous years. GCPEA’s researchers identified 360 incidents of attacks on universities and other tertiary institutions in 28 countries globally. During the period under review, about 2,460 higher education students or staff were killed, injured, or abducted while over 1,700 were detained or arrested.

Out of the all the countries that were profiled by the GCPEA, 15 were in Africa, representing 54% of the countries where the incidents occurred globally. These countries were Burkina Faso, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Libya, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Sudan.

Worst-hit areas

On the continent, the highest number of attacks on higher education and the use of university facilities by the military occurred in Sudan and the DRC.

For instance, in Sudan, the ongoing civil war between the country’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) since April 2023 had brought destruction and violence to some institutions of higher learning. The GCPEA report identified 28 attacks on higher education in Sudan, including one incident of sexual violence.

On 14 May 2023, an armed group of fighters raided a dormitory for teaching staff at the Ahfad University for Women, took two women to another building and raped them, according to the report. In another incident in June 2023, several shells hit the El Geneina University’s female dormitory in the Sudanese region of West Darfur and one student was blinded in one eye.

On 28 July 2022, security forces hit medical students with batons at Elsheikh Abdallah Elbadri University in Berber town in River Nile state while, on 22 August 2022, police assaulted and threw teargas at university students who had staged a protest in Al Gedaref city over poor living conditions at their dormitories.

Several attacks on higher education of which the majority involved attacks on infrastructure rather than students or staff were reported last year. The mode of attack, according to the report, was the use of heavy explosive weapons that included airstrikes and shelling.

For instance, on 17 April 2023, an airstrike hit the Jabra Scientific College for Islamic Studies campus in Khartoum while, on 28 May 2023, the University of Zalingei in Central Darfur was looted.

About a week later, on 4 June, an airstrike hit the International University of Africa in Khartoum, while another airstrike hit the area around Nyala University in South Darfur on 13 September 2023.

The GCPEA identified at least 17 incidents involving the military use of universities and schools in Sudan during 2023.

In this regard, RSF is reported to have used the Omdurman Islamic University as a base in Khartoum state on 3 July 2023, while an attack by the regular Sudanese army resulted in clashes at the university.

In mid-2023, the University of Medical Sciences and Technology in Khartoum was hijacked by RSF soldiers and used as barracks and weapons stores, forcing the closure of the university – and students fled.

Actions against protesters

Trends in attacks on university students, lecturers and professors, and military use of universities in 2022-23 were pervasive in several African countries.

For instance, in Nigeria, GCPEA identified attacks on higher education in which students and academics were injured, abducted, killed, threatened, detained or arrested.

According to the report, most of the cited attacks in Nigeria involved violence on university students and academic staff rather than infrastructure and were perpetrated by both state and non-state armed groups such as the military, police and militias.

On 7 September 2023, police fired teargas to disperse protesting University of Lagos students and arrested several.

According to GCPEA, on 23 September 2023, an armed militia abducted 30 students, including at least 24 female students, enrolled at the Federal University of Gusau in Zamfara state. Fourteen of the abducted students were later rescued, although the fate of the rest is still unknown.

On 4 October 2023, five female students from the Federal University Dutsinma, in Katsina state were abducted by an armed group. According to the vice-chancellor, Professor Armaya’ u Hamisu Bichi, the students were released on 15 December 2023, after remaining in captivity for more than 70 days.

Quoting the International Crisis Group, GCPEA noted that, in mid-October 2023, a suspected armed group killed an official of Ebonyi State University while he was travelling in Imo town, while another armed group allegedly planted an explosive device outside the gate of the University of Maiduguri. The explosives were later safely detonated by police.

On 17 May 2022, the Nigerian military fired live ammunition in the air to disperse protesting university students in Ondo state, urging the government to reach an agreement with a union for academic staff striking at public universities in the country so that classes could resume.

In Kenya, on 20 March 2023, police threw teargas and shot live bullets at Maseno University students near Kisumu. The students were protesting about the high cost of living on campus. A few days later, on 4 April 2023, police in Kericho county threw teargas at the University of Kabianga where students were protesting at student loan delays and increased university fees. A similar clash between police and students at Machakos University occurred on 5 December 2022.

In its report, GCPEA noted that clashes between the Ethiopian military and armed troops of the Tigray state led to five attacks on higher education in 2022. On 11 January 2022, the Ethiopian air force carried out an airstrike on the Technical and Vocational Education and Training Institute, killing three men and injuring 21 people, many of them women, in Mekelle, the capital of Tigray.

On 25 June 2022, police beat and forcibly dispersed students marching from Addis Ababa University to an off-campus site while, on 13 September 2022, a drone strike hit the business campus of Mekelle University in Mekelle.

In August 2022, armed clashes between the Ethiopia military and Amhara armed forces took place near Gondar University in Gondar, and several facilities of the university were damaged.

During the period under review, GCPEA identified one incident in Egypt, when, on 3 October 2022, police assaulted some protesting students and arrested at least eight others outside the South Sudanese embassy in Cairo. The students, who were from South Sudan, were protesting living conditions at various Egyptian universities and calling for the payment of their scholarships.

Sexual violence

During the 2022-23 period, GCPEA classified sexual violence perpetrated by armed forces, police and other security entities as well as non-state actors at, or on the way to or from the university as a distinct category in the attacks on higher education.

The gendered dynamics of attacks on education in Africa, according to Jerome Marston, a senior researcher at the GCPEA were common in Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Niger, South Sudan, and Sudan.

Widening the scope to sexual violence, the GCPEA included rape, sexual slavery, forced marriage, forced prostitution, forced pregnancy, forced sterilisation, forced abortion, forced circumcision, castration, genital harm, and any other non-consensual sexual acts.

The report also includes acts that may not necessarily require physical violence or contact but include humiliation or shaming of a sexual nature, such as forced nudity and abduction for these purposes.

On a global scale, GCPEA noted that about 6,000 attacks on education took place between 2022 and 2023 in which about 10,000 students, teachers, professors and other academics suffered atrocities. GCPEA stressed that students with disabilities; lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender, and others from the LGBTQA+ community; as well as students from Indigenous and ethnic minorities, faced greater vulnerabilities, as they were uniquely impacted by attacks and violence on higher education.