The report

Wars: Save the Children sounds the alarm – 93 million children are out of school

Escalating conflicts, the increasing use of explosive weapons, school buildings destroyed or turned into shelters: in two years, attacks on education have risen by 40 per cent

by Vittorio Belluschi

9 September 2026

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Bambini sfollati partecipano a un’attività di colorazione organizzata dall’ONG Save the Children in una scuola trasformata in centro di accoglienza per famiglie sfollate a Tiro, nel Libano meridionale, il 27 agosto 2026. REUTERS/Mohamad Azakir REUTERS

2' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

2' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

Save the Children has today, Tuesday 9 September – the International Day for the Protection of Education from Armed Attack – issued a statement denouncing the denial of the right to education for children living in war zones.

According to reports, attacks on education in the 2024–2025 period have increased by more than 40 per cent compared with the previous two-year period, and 93 million children are out of school due to crises around the world.

The global situation

Lebanon, a country that has been experiencing a severe education crisis for years, has around 100,000 children starting school ‘without a classroom in which to study’. Families are afraid to send their children to school due to “air strikes and widespread insecurity”. This situation fuels social ills such as child labour, early marriage and exploitation.

A Gaza, almost all school buildings (97.5 per cent) have been damaged by military attacks, depriving more than 400,000 children of ‘face-to-face learning’.

Whilst the West Bank is unable to guarantee ‘safe and uninterrupted’ access to education, due to military operations, restrictions on movement, the demolition of schools and settler violence, which has now become a daily occurrence.

In Ukraine, ‘almost one in five schools (19 per cent) are forced to use a hybrid teaching model combining face-to-face and remote learning’, due to their proximity to the front line or the lack of adequately equipped air-raid shelters. School publishers’ warehouses have also come under Russian attack: more than a million textbooks have been lost.

In Sudan, ‘10.5 million children are in need of educational support and around 8 million school-age children have not yet returned to the classroom’. The country was already in a critical state even before the outbreak of the conflict in 2023, with nearly 7 million children excluded from education. Many school buildings are now being used as shelters for displaced families.

Staying in Africa, the Democratic Republic of the Congo recorded more than three hundred attacks on schools during the two-year period under review.

The call to action

“No child should be forced to choose between going to school and surviving. Schools are civilian facilities protected under international humanitarian law and should never be targeted for attack or used for military purposes,” says Save the Children’s Director-General Daniela Fatarella.

The organisation is calling on governments to take concrete action in this regard by signing the 2015 Safe Schools Declaration, which aims to protect pupils, teachers and school buildings. Another priority for world leaders must be the full replenishment of the Global Partnership for Education, allocating $5 billion to help tackle the growing global education crisis by 2030.

“Protecting schools means protecting the future,” concludes Fatarella.

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