The latest reports show about half of the families arriving from Sudan into Chad have school-aged children. The U.N. High Commission for Refugees says 83% of these children had been attending schools in Sudan before they were forced to flee.
UNHCR spokeswoman Olga Sarrado says it is crucial that they continue their education as soon as possible, stating that school protects children from many risks they are likely to face while in exile.
"Child protection, child marriage, early marriage is one of the main concerns that we have, especially in Chad, of those children that are arriving - as well as child labor. And that is why we are making all the efforts from the start of the emergency to include school as part of the priority responses," Sarrado said.
Yasmine Sherif, executive director of Education Cannot Wait, the U.N. global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises, said children account for nearly 70% of the pre-registered refugees.
Sherif participated in a high-level field mission with UNHCR and UNICEF to the border regions of Chad with Sudan, where 60,000 refugees recently arrived.
She said the children who came there with their families were deeply traumatized and terrified by their experience. The children said they had to hide during the day because they were being pursued during their flight by the rebels waging war in western Darfur.
Sherif added that children in Sudan have not gone to school for the past six months for fear of being killed, kidnapped, sexually abused, and recruited as child soldiers by the warring parties.
"When we spoke to them, the first thing they asked for is water, shelter, food, and education. You can embed water, food, shelter, and protection in education," Sherif said, adding "you get interconnected components of all of this by providing education. But also, you are giving them a hope for the future."
Sherif said her agency is allocating $3 million as an initial grant to educate newly arriving children in Chad. But she notes much more money will be needed to get the growing number of Sudanese refugee children back to school.
Since conflict erupted between the Sudanese army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces on April 15, more than 200,000 people have fled to the Central African Republic, Chad, Egypt, Ethiopia, and South Sudan.
The UNHCR estimates this number could reach 860,000, including hundreds of thousands of children.