SALON

Sunday, Sep 16, 2012 8:00 PM UTC

Civil war keeps many Syrian children from school

By

Topics: From the Wires,

Civil war keeps many Syrian children from schoolA book is left on the ground at the yard of a school destroyed in government airstrike in Tel Rifaat, on the outskirts of Aleppo, Syria, Sunday, Sept. 16, 2012. A new school year began in Syria on Sunday, but the country's agonizing civil war is keeping thousands of students out of classrooms across the country. Many schools have been destroyed or are home to refugees. Some parents are simply too afraid to send their children to school due over fears of violence. (AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen) (Credit: AP)

TEL RIFAAT, Syria (AP) — Nine-year-old Rawan Mustafa knew she would miss school this year.

Her primary school is in ruins, blown apart two months ago by an airstrike in rebel-controlled northern Syria.

“I come here to find books to take them home and read — my sister helps me,” Rawan said Sunday, picking her way through the rubble of shattered walls, half-burned work books and smashed glass.

Sunday was the official first day of school in Syria, a country of 23 million people, but the country’s agonizing civil war is keeping thousands of students like Rawan out of classrooms nationwide.

Many schools have been destroyed or occupied by refugees. Some parents are simply too afraid to send their children to school due over fears of violence. Still others are living in refugee camps outside the country with only limited access to an education.

The U.N. children’s agency says it is difficult to know precisely how many Syrian children have been out of school for an extended period due to the conflict, which started 18 months ago and has killed at least 23,000 people.

Dina Craissati, UNICEF’s regional education adviser, said at least 200,000 Syrian children who have been displaced from their homes within the country are having difficulty accessing education. Outside Syria’s borders, the U.N. has registered more than 250,000 refugees — including children — but tens of thousands more have fled to Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon and Iraq without registering.

Some 2,000 schools have been damaged in the conflict and 759 are being used as sanctuaries for those displaced, Syrian Education Minister Hazwan al-Wazz said. Still, the government says 22,000 schools are operating and handling any overflow by having students attend classes in shifts.

The government said more than 5 million students attended school on Sunday.

Mohammed Rakani, a 10-year-old from the Damascus suburb of Sbeineh, was not among them. He is staying with his family at the Somayya al-Makhzomiya School in Damascus, which is sheltering more 300 people, or 65 families.

“I want to return to my school, which I love so much. I am now in the fourth grade,” Mohammed said during a government-escorted trip to the school on Sunday.

In the north, where the opposition wields much more control, rebel officials say they are too focused on getting enough food and medical supplies into the country to concentrate on schools. There are also fears that any makeshift schools set up may attract airstrikes.

“Our main focus is food, shelter and medical care right now,” said Seif al-Haq, a rebel with the Tawhid Brigade that is responsible for civilian affairs in the northern city of Aleppo and the surrounding countryside.

“No schools are running in the liberated areas of Aleppo, they were all destroyed, but we are trying to run makeshift classes underground, like English or computers. Of course we’re still afraid they’ll get hit,” he said.

Abu Ahmed, a high school physics teacher in Tel Rifaat, said some had contemplated holding private classes but feared they would be hit by the airstrikes that hit the area on a daily basis.

“They target anywhere where people gather,” he said, asking his real name not be used because as a civil servant, he is still receiving his government salary.

Another problem is that many teachers have joined the hundreds of thousands of Syrians who have fled the province.

Standing amid the ruins of the school, Mohammed Ibrahim, 13, said his Arabic teacher Abdel-Razaq was his favorite because he never got angry. But Abdel-Razaq was gone now, along with half of Mohammed’s friends.

“It makes me sad that they are not here,” said Ibrahim, whose favorite subject is math because he said it makes his brain work. “It’s boring without them.”

Even in villages considered “safe,” that aren’t subject to daily bombings, schools aren’t opening, often because they are filled with refugees.

In the town of Souran, the newly built school is still in perfect condition, but each classroom is now filled with a different extended family who sleep side by side on the floor on thin mattresses.

Refugees from the fighting in Aleppo, they came here months ago and moved all the desks out into the sun-splashed courtyard so that they could settle in the classrooms.

The displaced acknowledged, though, that local residents had been urging them to leave and head for the refugee camps on the border so that the school could return to its original use.

It’s not clear why so many schools have been hit in the fighting. In some cases rebels have apparently used the facilities, as may have been the case in Tel Rifaat where one classroom had some tattered military fatigues on the floor.

Residents in Kal Jibreen, however, say that wasn’t the case with their school, which on Saturday afternoon was nearly hit by a missile that tore the facade off the house across from it.

A few weeks ago, rockets put a hole in the school roof and smashed most of its windows, according to residents.

“Today we should all be in school, but we can’t go because of the planes,” said Dargham Yassin, a bespectacled little boy who like many Syrian children looks much younger than his 12 years. Without school, he’s not sure how he will fill his days.

“I’ll do nothing,” he said. “I’ll go feed the sheep.”

Syrians who have escaped their country also lack access to education.

At the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan — which is fast becoming known as “the children’s camp” — two-thirds of the 30,000 Syrian refugees are under 18, while 5,000 are 4 and younger. On a recent day, the children filled plastic bottles with drinking water at pumps or played on swings and slides; others scampered aimlessly about.

Save the Children and UNICEF believe part of the healing process for the camp’s children will mean going back to school.

But Jordanian officials have said that may not happen until October at the earliest, after promised funding is made available by the government of Bahrain. UNICEF wants a school for the camp’s children to open much sooner.

“We really need to ensure that children regain some sense of normalcy. They have been through horrific times and have seen extreme violence,” said Dominique Hyde, UNICEF’s representative to Jordan. “They need as soon as possible not only to come back to education but also to some sort of routine and stability. School provides one of the best ways.”

___

Gavlak reported from Zataari, Jordan. AP writer Albert Aji contributed to this report from Damascus, Syria.

More Dale Gavlak.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 0 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
FBI reportedly joins Bachmann campaign finance probe
142 points143 points | 4 comments
vote
Jon Karl makes things worse: He regrets “inaccurate” Benghazi email but says his story based on it “still entirely stands.” Really. ABC News?
120 points121 points | 22 comments
vote
“Jodorowsky’s Dune”: The sci-fi classic that never was.
56 points57 points | 14 comments
vote
Doug Henwood: Capitalism Thrives on Class Exploitation
42 points43 points | 4 comments
vote
Paul Krugman’s right: Austerity kills. "In an economy where we’re all in the same boat, one person’s spending is another person’s income. So when the government cuts spending, it reduces people’s income, leading to less business, more unemployment, and a vicious spiral of slowing down the economy."
44 points45 points | 20 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations