United Nations peacekeepers in Liberia used teargas to disperse a demonstration on Wednesday by parents and pupils who want their primary school in the capital reopened.
Hundreds of demonstrators, including schoolchildren in uniform, disrupted traffic to protest the closure of the Early Learning Foundation School, which has not opened its doors since the new term started on October 5.
UN troops clad in riot gear lobbed tear gas into the crowd after local youths joined the initially peaceful protest.
At least three children, dressed in the school’s orange-and-blue uniform, were injured, but an AFP reporter on the scene said they had been struck by rocks thrown by the protesters, not by the UN response.
The decision to close the school was made by transitional chairperson Gyude Bryant, said Nadine Monger, the mother of five pupils enrolled at the school.
”His sister wants to move her school here, so they are throwing our children out,” she said. ”So where are our children going to go to school? Why should they not be allowed to learn?
”And what about the school fees we have already paid, and the uniforms we have bought? Who will pay for that?”
Several parents said the protest embodied larger frustrations both with the Bryant government and the UN mission, on the ground since October last year to help return peace to the West African state after 14 years of nearly uninterrupted war.
”They are hurting our children, when all we want to do is make sure they can go to school,” said one father who would identify himself only as George.
”They are profiting from us, keeping us down. The Bryant government is corrupt, and they know that it is corrupt, but they aren’t doing anything about it.” — Sapa-AFP