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Cameroon Reopens Schools Threatened by Boko Haram

by Moki Edwin Kindzeka

   LIMANI, CAMEROON --

   Children at the Government Primary School Limani dance with joy as they
   meet each other in class for the first time in several years.

   Cameroon has re-opened 40 schools on its northern border with Nigeria
   that were sealed four years ago because of threats from Boko Haram
   insurgents. But while students are happy returning, many of their
   teachers are absent and have been replaced by troops from the
   Multinational Joint Task Force still fighting the Islamist group.
   The children's school in Limani is one of the forty near northern
   Cameroon's border with Nigeria that authorities reopened this week,
   citing improved security.
   Cameroon closed around sixty schools in the area beginning in December
   2014 because of the threat from Boko Haram.
   The Islamist militant group, whose name roughly translates as
   "non-Islamic education is a sin," had launched an all-out assault on
   villages near the Lake Chad area.
   Cameroon says hundreds of Boko Haram fighters attacked and torched
   schools, including the Limani primary school.
   Ibrahim Nassourou was nine years old when the school was shut. He and
   his parents fled to a neighboring village where Nassourou was unable to
   attend school.
   He says when he was told that their school in Limani had been reopened
   he shouted with joy because he can now again persue an education.
   Cameroon authorities are touting the absense of a major Boko Haram
   attack for the past year and are urging parents to return their
   children to the re-opened schools. Troops are protecting the schools,
   they say.