The United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) has called on South Sudanese soldiers to cease occupying the Comboni school in Leer and other schools in Unity State, pointing out that hundreds of thousands of children have been forced out of school by the conflict.

In a press conference today, the UNMISS Spokesperson Ariane Quentier said peacekeepers' patrols in the Unity State capital Bentiu and the establishment of a new temporary operating base in Leer have helped improve security, but schools remain unused.

“With the presence of UNMISS in Bentiu through constant patrolling since July, some communities have felt more secure to return to the town where schools, however, have been closed since the conflict started. UNMISS is currently engaging with the SPLA and the authorities for the vacation of educational and other social service facilities occupied by armed forces,” she said.

“The Mission has also raised the same issue with SPLA in Leer to vacate the school of the Comboni Brothers.”

At the same press conference Tizie Maphalala, education manager for the UN Children's Fund in South Sudan, said that currently there are more than 1.8 million out-of-school children in South Sudan. 

“Even before the December 2013 crisis, South Sudan was already one of the most difficult places in the world to be a schoolchild with only one in ten children completing primary school. A girl in South Sudan is three times more likely to die in childbirth than complete primary school,” she said.

The 2013 conflict worsened the situation by forcing more than 400,000 additional children out of school. Primary school enrolment rates have decreased from 42% to 35% since the onset of the conflict, according to Maphalala.

UNICEF says that over 331 schools have been closed, damaged occupied or abandoned as a consequence of military use or attacks.