TADEF, Syria — In a
frontline town divided by regime and rebel forces in northwest
Syria, students
have returned to classrooms in a bombed-out building with no glass in the
windows, no doors, desks, chairs, or electricity.
اضافة اعلان
Girls carrying
pink backpacks play alongside boys with blue ones in the courtyard of their
school in Tadif, some 32km east of Aleppo.
Heavily damaged
during Syria’s more than decade-long war, Tadif lies on what has turned into a
quiet front line between regime forces and Ankara-backed rebels.
Most of the
eight schools in the area have been completely destroyed.
But one reopened
this week, welcoming around 300 students from the rebel-held sector of Tadif.
In a dark
makeshift classroom, children were gathered for their mathematics class.
“Because of the
war, most of the schools in the city have been destroyed and we cannot repair
them,” math teacher Salah Al-Khamis told AFP.
Mohamed Al-Akil,
the mayor of Tadif and a father of two, said he has sent his own children to
school in a nearby village.
“We can only
accommodate 300 pupils out of 3,000,” he said.
Tadif’s
makeshift school is one of many desperate attempts to provide education in
Syria’s embattled northwest, where 44 percent of school-aged children do not
have access to education, according to the United Nations.
Children make up
more than half of the region’s population of more than four million, the UN
says.
“Hundreds of schools
have been damaged or destroyed by bombing and far too many children remain out
of school,” Mark Cutts, UN deputy regional humanitarian coordinator for Syria,
said.
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