Asni: MoIn the earthquake-hit mountains of Morocco, 13-year-old Abdessamad El Berd gets up before dawn to make the long trek to the tent city that is his new school, walking by torchlight and careful to avoid roaming dogs.
His father accompanies him on the 14-kilometer (nine-mile) walk from their remote village of Tinghar to the makeshift school set up in the small town of Asni, in the disaster-hit area south of Marrakech.
“I don’t want him to drop out of school, but it’s tough,” said the 45-year-old father, Brahim El Berd.
“I don’t know if he can keep up this pace,” the man said, voicing hope that school buses will soon be organized.
“Otherwise, we won’t make it.”
Morocco’s education ministry has set up 32 traditional tents at Asni that serve as a school for 2,800 middle and high school students.
Classes have not yet officially resumed since the 6.8-magnitude earthquake struck the region on September 8, killing nearly 3,000 people.
But many children are already flocking to the tent school, where teachers provide a distraction and badly-needed psychological support to the children, many of whom have lost family members.
“I don’t feel very well,” said one pupil, Khadija Ait Ali, 17.
“But the fact that I’m back at school, even if in a tent, surrounded by my friends, is a relief.
“I don’t like being alone anymore because all I think about is the earthquake.”
The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization has said the quake impacted around one million school children.
It damaged or destroyed 530 schools and 55 boarding facilities, and classes were suspended in about 40 municipalities in the Al-Haouz, Chichaoua and Taroudant provinces.
At the makeshift school, French language teacher Abdellah Zahid, 32, said that, until classes resume, the main goal is to support the children.
“We are focusing on listening to our students and providing them with psychological support,” Zahid told AFP.
Despite the shared trauma, he voiced hope of “making this challenging school year a success.”
Another pupil, 15-year-old Samira Ait Achichaou, had also set off at dawn with her father, hitchhiking more than 40 kilometers from her village of Ousserterk.
“It’s tough, but I’m glad to be back on track with school,” she said.
Others pupils said they are struggling with emotional scars that run deep.
Amina Ait Abdellah, 16, said she “doesn’t feel ready to resume classes” yet.
“I still haven’t come to terms with the tragedy we experienced,” said Amina, from the village of Ouirgane, 14 kilometers southwest of Asni.
“I can’t stop thinking about the house we lost. I can’t stand the tents either,” she said, surrounded by friends who agreed with her.
“They remind me of the earthquake and its miseries.”
One mother, Hasna Lahdadi, said her 11-year-old son Yahia was among the children still tormented by acute distress.
“I try to do my best to help him express his anxieties,” she said. “He’s very afraid of aftershocks. Our house suffered serious damage.”
She tried to persuade him to switch to a school in Marrakech, but he refused.
“I want to stay with my friends,” said Yahia. “I’m happy to see them again.”
Some of the children have lost almost everything, and school has become their refuge.
Jamal Ait Hmane, 43, was taking his 13-year-old daughter to school, all the way from the town of Tamgounsi, about 100 kilometers away.
“I want them to continue their education,” he said. “It will help them forget the tragedy of the earthquake.”
Children trek to tent school in quake-hit Morocco
https://arab.news/n5efd
Children trek to tent school in quake-hit Morocco
- Morocco’s education ministry has set up 32 traditional tents at Asni that serve as a school for 2,800 middle and high school students
- Children are already flocking to the tent school, where teachers provide a distraction and badly-needed psychological support to the children
Gazans mourn six killed in Israeli shelling on shelter
- In a statement on Saturday, Hamas denounced “a brutal crime committed against innocent civilians and a flagrant, recurring violation of the ceasefire agreement”
GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: Dozens of Palestinians gathered at a Gaza City hospital on Saturday to mourn six people, including children, that the civil defense said were killed by the Israeli shelling of a shelter for displaced people.
The Israeli military said late on Friday that troops had fired at “suspicious individuals to eliminate the threat,” adding that it was reviewing the incident and “regrets any harm to uninvolved individuals.”
Gaza’s civil defense agency, which operates as a rescue force under Hamas authority, initially said on Friday that the Israeli shelling of a school-turned-shelter killed five people in the Tuffah neighborhood east of Gaza City.
Agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal updated the toll to six, including children, on Saturday, adding that two people were unaccounted for under the rubble.
The director of Gaza City’s Al-Shifa Hospital, Mohammed Abu Salmiya, told AFP the victims were a four-month old infant, a 14-year-old girl, two men and two women.
Inside the hospital’s morgue on Saturday, relatives peered beneath blankets to get a last glimpse of their loved ones.
Outside, a grief-stricken man clutched an infant’s body wrapped in a white shroud, AFP footage showed.
Five other body bags were laid out on the ground as mourners prayed over the dead.
“This is not a truce, it is a bloodbath,” said Nafiz Al-Nader, who witnessed the attack.
“We want the bloodshed to stop and we don’t want to lose our loved ones every day,” he told AFP.
‘Flagrant, recurring violation’
In its statement on Friday, the Israeli military said: “During operational activity in the area of the Yellow line in the northern Gaza Strip, a number of suspicious individuals were identified in command structures west of the Yellow line.”
Under the US-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, Israeli forces have withdrawn to positions east of the so-called Yellow Line.
“Shortly after identification, the troops fired at the suspicious individuals to eliminate the threat,” the military said, adding that it was “aware of the claim regarding casualties in the area, and the details are under review.”
Abdullah Al-Nader, who lost his relatives, told AFP that the shelling suddenly erupted in the evening.
“It was a safe area and a safe school and suddenly... they began firing shells without warning, targeting women, children and civilians,” he said.
In a statement on Saturday, Hamas denounced “a brutal crime committed against innocent civilians and a flagrant, recurring violation of the ceasefire agreement.”
The Palestinian Islamist movement urged the ceasefire mediators and US President Donald Trump’s administration “to assume their responsibilities regarding these violations and intervene immediately.”
The ceasefire remains fragile with both sides alleging violations, and mediators fearing that both Israel and Hamas are stalling.
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said on Saturday that at least 401 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the territory since the ceasefire came into effect on October 10.
Israel has also repeatedly accused Hamas of violating the ceasefire, with the military reporting three soldiers killed in the territory since the truce entered into force.
