UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova on Wednesday expressed her outrage and distress over the attack on a school in Pakistan’s Peshawar city in which 148 people, including 132 students, were killed.
“Less than a week after Malala Yousafzai was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, this heinous attack is a crime against the future of all children and the nation of Pakistan,” said Bokova in a statement.
“It is a crime against learning and against innocence, committed in the very place where children come each day to open their minds — their own school,” she added.
Bokova said terror will not silence the millions of voices around the world that are demanding that education should be a right and that schools should be safe.
"We will let neither fear nor terror have the upper hand," she said.
She extended her deepest condolences to the families and friends who have lost their close kin in this tragedy and said the perpetrators of the crime should be brought to justice.