Protecting schools from attacks and military use is essential to ensuring access to education for all children in Africa, a United Nations child rights envoy said Tuesday, urging world leaders to use the upcoming World Humanitarian Summit as an opportunity to generate new commitments to ensure that conflict does not mean the end of learning for millions of children.

"Schools in the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Libya, Mali, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Sudan, have been looted, pillaged, damaged and destroyed during military operations, putting the future of an entire generation at risk," Leila Zerrougui, the Secretary-General's Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict told the African Union's Peace and Security Council during the body's third annual Open Session on children and armed conflict. 
"The African Union and its member States can and must make a difference by including measures to end and prevent attacks against schools in domestic legislation, including criminalization of these acts, and must hold perpetrators accountable," she said. 

She called on Member States to endorse the Safe School Declaration, developed in 2015 through an inter-governmental political process, and commit to implement the "Guidelines for Protecting Schools and Universities from Military Use during Armed Conflict" adopted in December 2014.