eua_2014_full.pdf?utm_content=buffer4a392&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter

EDUCATION UNDER ATTACK 2014schools were used as barracks or bases in operations,particularly in states most affected by theMaoist insurgency. 70 Police and paramilitary forcesoccupied school buildings, either temporarily or forextended periods ranging from six months to threeyears during their counter-insurgency operations.Some were occupied for over a decade. 71 In Thailand,security forces occupied at least 79 schools in 2010 72and continued to use schools as barracks and basesfor at least the next year, Human Rights Watchreported. 73Colombia and the Philippines specifically prohibit themilitary use of schools in military policy, 74 andnational legislation bans the practice unequivocallyin the Philippines. 75 Yet in Colombia, the InternationalCommittee of the Red Cross (ICRC) recorded 75 casesof occupation of school facilities by all armed actorsduring 2009-2012; 76 and in the Philippines, themilitary was responsible for most of the 56 incidentsof military use of schools in 2010-2012 recorded bythe UN. They used some schools as barracks or basesfor over a year; 77 used functioning schools asweapons and ammunition stores in 2010; 78 and, in2011, used at least 14 schools during the course ofcounter-insurgency operations. 79In many countries, the military use of schools led tothem being attacked or was employed as a justificationby perpetrators of attacks. In Somalia, forinstance, Al-Shabaab fighters used a school inMogadishu as a firing position while the studentswere still in the classrooms, drawing return fire frompro-government forces. Five rockets hit the schoolcompound, with one striking and killing eight peoplejust as the students were leaving the school. 80In some places, such as India, rebels claimed theywere attacking schools because they were or hadbeen occupied by security forces even though thiswas not always the case. 81 When using schools,police often fortified the buildings, set up sentryboxes and lookout shelters and dug trenches orcreated barriers from rings of barbed wire andsandbags, leaving schools resembling military installationsrather than neutral places of learning. Thismay have increased the risk that they might be viewedas military targets even after the troops had left. 8253