It was meant to be an optimistic story about schools in South Sudan this week.
The United Nations was announcing 400,000 more children in school this year, with a £27m project to re-start lessons after the disruption of war.
But instead there have been angry denunciations and war-weary condemnations as 89 children have been abducted by an armed group in Malakal in the north of South Sudan.
With no little poignancy for an education campaign, Unicef says they were abducted while preparing for exams.
And the official figure is believed to be a substantial underestimate of the numbers of youngsters kidnapped and taken to a training camp to become child soldiers.
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Julia Gillard, former Australian prime minister and now head of the Global Partnership for Education which is co-ordinating international efforts to create school places, expressed her "utter dismay" at the kidnappings.