Unrest, blockade push over 3 million Nepal children out of schools

KATHMANDU: Over three million children are out of school in Nepal's southern plain due to prolonged unrest and blockade at Nepal-India border, according to Nepalese finance Minister Bishnu Prasad Poudel.
He said that educational activities have been seriously affected in 20 districts of Nepal's southern plain directly hitting the future of more than three million children, who have not been able to attend schools for more than two months due to unrest.
He said this in a white paper of the government on current economic crisis in the wake of the April 25 devastating earthquake and over two-month long India's unofficial blockade in Nepal, unveiled late Tuesday evening.
"The prolonged protests in the Tarai-Madhes and disruption of supply arrangements due to blockade in the border, the future of 1.1 million children of child development centres, as many as 7.54 million students from grade 1 to 12 and 652,000 students pursuing higher education have not been able to enjoy their right to education as they are forced out of school," Poudel said in a nationally televised speech on the white paper.
"The unrest has not only hit the areas where protests are going on, it has had negative impact all over Nepal as institutional and community schools in other parts of the country have been hit due to obstruction in transport as well as shortage of fuel," he said.
The white paper stated that the government was not able to distribute textbooks to 7.2 million children as they could not be printed and transported to schools due to fuel shortage.
It attributes fuel shortage to India's unofficial blockade as vehicles carrying petroleum products, raw materials and other goods both from India and third countries have not been allowed to enter into Nepal as Nepal is surrounded by India from three sides.
The unrest and blockade have also have serious negative impact on health sectors as hospitals, pharmacies are running out of life-saving drugs, equipment and oxygen cylinders, the government white paper notes.
"The life-saving medicines and blood is visibly in shortage; emergency human organ transplant surgeries have been significantly cut down, basic immunization service to the children has been significantly affected and serious humanitarian crisis is likely to emerge with the disruption of nutrition programme", the paper states.
However, India has denied the blockade and said Nepalese citizens on the southern plain have launched protests obstructing vehicular movement along Nepal-India border.
Nepal is land-locked country surrounded by India from three sides (east, west and south) and more than two-third of Nepal's trade is with India. — Bernama