Back to school for some young Syrians
Millions of Syrian children, most of them in government-controlled areas, have returned to school in the past two weeks, despite the conflict that according to UNICEF has left 4,000 Syrian schools, or one in five, damaged, destroyed or sheltering displaced families.
It has been a year since al-Fikri and his siblings were last in school. The area has seen ongoing battles between opposition forces and troops loyal to President Bashar Assad, and like pretty much everything else in Madaya, the school was forced to shut down because of the violence.
Despite a constant risk of bombardment, al-Fikri and about 200 other pupils returned to school this week in a village desperately seeking normalcy in times of war. "We go to school in fear," al-Fikri said. "They shell us with rockets, airplanes and missiles."
The Syrian war, now in its third year, has killed over 100,000 people and displaced millions. The spark for the uprising against Assad was a school in the country's southern city of Daraa, where teenagers sprayed anti-government graffiti on a wall. A heavy-handed response then sparked an uprising which has since escalated into an insurgency and civil war.
Activists say that in rebel-held areas, which have largely descended into chaos, more than half the schools are closed. The few that are functional are constantly under threat.
In the Madaya school, a run-down facility in the northern province of Idlib, children brushed up on counting to ten in English. For many of them, just being back in the classroom is a reminder of what life was like before the war.
al-Fikri said his son will eventually have to leave the school to fight Assad's army if the war continues. It will be a moral and religious duty, he added.
