1jIl0Vh

PART III — COUNTRY PROFILeSthe night and began firing on students in their dormitoriesas they slept. While casualty figures varied,reports suggested that as many as 50 students werekilled. 1198 The gunmen also reportedly set fire to classrooms.Some 1,000 students were said to have left thecampus in the wake of the attack. 1199Several other incidents involving higher educationwere reported. Students alleged that the police usedtear gas and fired live ammunition to break up aprotest against university transport prices at theUniversity of Uyo in June, killing a student; police,however, denied this claim, saying that the studentshad brought the body to them outside the campus,which they were prohibited from entering. Universityequipment was reportedly destroyed in anger after thekilling and 45 students were arrested, of whom 44were charged with arson and murder. 1200In another incident, on 13 February, local policedetained between 10 and 12 lecturers at Rivers StateUniversity of Science and Technology for holding ameeting of the local chapter of the Academic StaffUnion of Universities on campus. They were held forfive hours before being released. 1201PAKISTANThere were a reported 838 or more attacks on schoolsin Pakistan during 2009-2012, more than in any othercountry, leaving hundreds of schools destroyed.Militants recruited children from schools andmadrassas, some to be suicide bombers. There werealso targeted killings of teachers and academics.ContextThe extremely high number of schools attacked inPakistan during 2009-2012 was the result of multiplesources of tension but, in particular, the PakistaniTaliban insurgency in the north-west.In addition to the unresolved conflict with India overKashmir, a series of conflicts, internal disturbancesand sectarian tensions plagued Pakistan in the run-upto and during the reporting period. Sunni and Shi’aMuslims periodically launched attacks against oneanother, frequently causing high numbers ofcasualties. In Balochistan, armed nationalist groupsnot only fought the federal government but also killednon-Balochs. The Pakistani military fought repeatedoffensives against Taliban militant strongholds in thetribal areas bordering Afghanistan throughout theperiod from 2009 to 2012. 1202 They also regainedcontrol of the Swat Valley and surrounding districtsfrom the Pakistani Taliban. Moreover, militants carriedout attacks well beyond their strongholds, infiltratingall major cities. The southern port city of Karachi wasperiodically brought to a standstill by political andsectarian shootings and bomb attacks as well asviolence by armed criminal gangs. 1203In the two years preceding the reporting period,several hundred schools were damaged or destroyed,mostly burned down by militants, as they sought togain control of areas of the north-west, including inWaziristan and Swat. When the Pakistani Taliban didgain control of the Swat Valley, they first banned girls’education and banned women from teaching, throughan edict in December 2008, and later amended theiredict to permit the education of girls, but only up tograde 4. 1204Many children are unable to access education forreasons that range from cost to community attitudestowards education, attacks on school structures or the168