IDLIB: Damage from last month’s Turkiye-Syria earthquake is exerting new pressure on northwestern Syria’s already strained education sector.
Harem, a city in Idlib, an opposition-held territory, was hit particularly badly by the quake.
Mohamed Al-Khatib is a quake survivor and local headteacher at Harem Rural School.
The three-building school he runs is one of the many educational facilities that the quake damaged and rendered unusable.
“One of the buildings (the school) is an old French building dating 100 years back to the French occupation,” Al-Khatib told Arab News.
“This great ancient French building has unfortunately been greatly affected and thus, we couldn’t receive our students, as it poses a great risk to them.”
According to Al-Khatib, about 49 schools in the area are now unusable.
The deaths of many teachers in the quake is another tragic reality that the education system is facing in the aftermath of the disaster.
“We have unfortunately lost many of them in the earthquake, while others have been greatly injured. Our school director, the late Prof. Mohammed Suleiman, was also a victim of the earthquake,” Al-Khatib said.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported that in northwest Syria, a total of 323 education facilities were damaged by the quake.
According to the OCHA, 20 of the schools deemed safe to use have been converted into temporary shelters for the displaced, leaving students unable to attend classes.
The quake added new strain on an education system that was already overburdened before the earthquake with a loss of teachers, lack of funding, overcrowded classrooms and damaged infrastructure as a result of the country’s more than decade-long civil war.
Despite the back-to-back crises, children in northwestern Syria are remaining hopeful for the future.
“I am now going to school without fearing the occurrence of an earthquake. I am studying and dreaming about becoming an engineer after graduation,” eight-year-old schoolboy Bilal told Arab News.
He witnessed the quake toppling buildings in his neighborhood and had to relocate schools after his own home was damaged by the quake.
Athna, a 10-year-old schoolgirl who also witnessed the quake firsthand, is also clinging on to hope.
Before the earthquake, she was one of the top students in her class, but is now unable to resume learning.
With an enthusiastic tone, Athna told Arab News: “I wish to become a successful doctor in the future.”
Quake strains northwest Syria’s education system but students dream on
https://arab.news/827x6
Quake strains northwest Syria’s education system but students dream on
- According to a local headteacher, about 49 schools in the area are now unusable
- The deaths of many teachers in the quake is another tragic reality that the education system is facing in the aftermath of the disaster
Iran temporarily closes airspace to most flights
WASHINGTON: Iran temporarily closed its airspace to all flights except international ones to and from Iran with official permission at 5:15 p.m. ET on Wednesday, according to a notice posted on the Federal Aviation Administration’s website.
The prohibition is set to last for more than two hours until 7:30 p.m. ET, or 0030 GMT, but could be extended, the notice said. The United States was withdrawing some personnel from bases in the Middle East, a US official said on Wednesday, after a senior Iranian official said Tehran had warned neighbors it would hit American bases if Washington strikes.
Missile and drone barrages in a growing number of conflict zones represent a high risk to airline traffic. India’s largest airline, IndiGo said some of its international flights would be impacted by Iran’s sudden airspace closure. A flight by Russia’s Aeroflot bound for Tehran returned to Moscow after the closure, according to tracking data from Flightradar24.
Earlier on Wednesday, Germany issued a new directive cautioning the country’s airlines from entering Iranian airspace, shortly after Lufthansa rejigged its flight operations across the Middle East amid escalating tensions in the region.
The United States already prohibits all US commercial flights from overflying Iran and there are no direct flights between the countries. Airline operators like flydubai and Turkish Airlines have canceled multiple flights to Iran in the past week. “Several airlines have already reduced or suspended services, and most carriers are avoiding Iranian airspace,” said Safe Airspace, a website run by OPSGROUP, a membership-based organization that shares flight risk information.
“The situation may signal further security or military activity, including the risk of missile launches or heightened air defense, increasing the risk of misidentification of civil traffic.” Lufthansa said on Wednesday that it would bypass Iranian and Iraqi airspace until further notice while it would only operate day flights to Tel Aviv and Amman from Wednesday until Monday next week so that crew would not have to stay overnight.
Some flights could also be canceled as a result of these actions, it added in a statement. Italian carrier ITA Airways, in which Lufthansa Group is now a major shareholder, said that it would similarly suspend night flights to Tel Aviv until Tuesday next week.
