عربي English Türkçe اردو فارسى
Logo
Latest News
Arab World

South Lebanon War Leaves 11,000 Students Out of School

Children playing in a shelter center for displaced people in the town of Marwaniyah in South Lebanon (AP)
Children playing in a shelter center for displaced people in the town of Marwaniyah in South Lebanon (AP)
TT
TT

South Lebanon War Leaves 11,000 Students Out of School

Children playing in a shelter center for displaced people in the town of Marwaniyah in South Lebanon (AP)
Children playing in a shelter center for displaced people in the town of Marwaniyah in South Lebanon (AP)

The ongoing clashes in South Lebanon have disrupted the school year, as many students have fled the region with their families, while others are besieged in the towns and unable to have a safe access to the classrooms.

The Lebanese Ministry of Education has resorted to temporary solutions, including providing students with the necessary tools for online learning and housing the displaced in safe areas, that is, within schools designated to accommodate them and help them complete their educational programs with the available means.

According to the ministry’s data, around 11,000 students have forcibly left their schools this year.

Director of the ministry’s Secondary Education Department Khaled Al-Fayed said that the concerned authorities were “dealing with a difficult reality that has imposed itself on students.”

He added that efforts were deployed to limit the resulting damage as much as possible.

In remarks to Asharq Al-Awsat, Al-Fayed said that 44 schools, including 12 secondary schools, have been permanently closed in the villages witnessing military confrontations.

He added: “There are 10,800 students who are out of school, including 1,951 in secondary education.”

He noted that these educational institutions are located in the towns of Alma al-Shaab, Marwahin, Marjayoun, Mays al-Jabal, Rmeish, Aita al-Shaab, Taybeh, Aitaroun, Shebaa, al-Khiam, Bint Jbeil and Kfarshuba.

What further complicated the situation was that the battles erupted in the South only one day before the beginning of the academic year on Oct. 8.

The students and their teachers were unable to find alternative solutions, which stirred a state of general confusion.

With the intensification of the Israeli bombing that destroyed hundreds of homes and facilities and forced the residents to flee their towns, the authorities scrambled to find temporary ways to address the crisis.

According to Al-Fayed, the ministry established 10 response centers for academic education students and 10 other centers for vocational education, distributed among areas of displacement in Beirut, Mount Lebanon, and the Bekaa, in addition to a small number of buildings in the cities of Sidon and Tyre.

Despite the difficulty to reach the students who are still trapped in their villages, the Ministry of Education was able to provide them with computers to facilitate distance learning.

The ministry official pointed to the distribution of 3,200 laptops and about 3,000 tablets to students and teachers in the South. As for private schools, he said that around 20 institutions have been closed permanently, while others enjoy a kind of independence and resort to online education through applications varying from WhatsApp to Zoom.

Students in border villages are facing another problem, which is the official baccalaureate exams, as the war is likely to continue until after June, during which the examinations take place.

In a recent announcement, Minister of Education Abbas Al-Halabi decided to conduct the official exams across the country, including the South, without specifying the mechanism by which students in the border villages would be able to sit for them.

Most Viewed

 
 
Arab World

Sudan Army Says Enters Key RSF-Held Al-Jazira State Capital

Sudanese people rally to celebrate in Meroe in the country's Northern State on January 11, 2025, after the army announced entering key Al-Jazira state capital Wad Madani, held by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). (AFP)
Sudanese people rally to celebrate in Meroe in the country's Northern State on January 11, 2025, after the army announced entering key Al-Jazira state capital Wad Madani, held by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). (AFP)
TT
TT

Sudan Army Says Enters Key RSF-Held Al-Jazira State Capital

Sudanese people rally to celebrate in Meroe in the country's Northern State on January 11, 2025, after the army announced entering key Al-Jazira state capital Wad Madani, held by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). (AFP)
Sudanese people rally to celebrate in Meroe in the country's Northern State on January 11, 2025, after the army announced entering key Al-Jazira state capital Wad Madani, held by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). (AFP)

The Sudanese military and allied armed groups launched an offensive Saturday on key Al-Jazira state capital Wad Madani, entering the city after more than a year of paramilitary control, the army said.

In a statement, the armed forces "congratulated" the Sudanese people on "our forces entering the city of Wad Madani this morning".

Sudan's army and Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitaries have been at war since April 2023, leading to what the UN calls the world's worst displacement crisis and declarations of famine in parts of the northeast African country.

A video the army shared on social media showed fighters claiming to be inside Wad Madani, after an army source told AFP they had "stormed the city's eastern entrance".

The footage appeared to be shot on the western side of Hantoub Bridge in northern Wad Madani, which has been under RSF control since December 2023.

The office of army-allied government spokesman and Information and Culture Minister Khalid al-Aiser said the army had "liberated" the city.

Sudan's foreign ministry hailed "the great victory achieved today", saying the army had regained Wad Madani.

The army, meanwhile, said its forces were "currently working on clearing the remnants of the rebels inside the city".

With a months-long communications blackout in place, AFP was not able to independently verify the situation on the ground.

Wad Madani is a strategic crossroads of key supply highways linking several states, and is the nearest major town to the capital Khartoum.

A victory in Al-Jazira would be the army's biggest breakthrough since it seized control of the capital's twin city of Omdurman nearly a year ago.

"The army and allied fighters have spread out around us across the city's streets," one eyewitness told AFP from his home in central Wad Madani, requesting anonymity for his safety.

- Celebrations -

Both the army and the RSF have been accused of war crimes including targeting civilians and indiscriminately shelling residential areas.

But the paramilitaries specifically have been notorious for summary killings, rampant looting, systematic sexual violence and laying siege to entire towns.

The United States on Tuesday said the RSF had "committed genocide" and imposed sanctions on its leader, Mohammed Hamdan Daglo.

The local resistance committee, one of hundreds of pro-democracy volunteer groups across the country coordinating frontline aid, hailed the Wad Madani advance as an end to "the tyranny" of the RSF.

Eyewitnesses in army-controlled cities across Sudan reported dozens taking to the streets in celebration.

Chants of "one army, one people" broke out in army-controlled Omdurman, part of greater Khartoum 200 kilometers (124 miles) north of Wad Madani, an eyewitness told AFP, requesting anonymity for their safety.

Since it began, the war has killed tens of thousands and uprooted more than 12 million people, more than three million of whom have fled across borders.

In the early months of the war, more than half a million people had sought shelter in Al-Jazira, before a lightning RSF offensive displaced upwards of 300,000 in December 2023, according to the UN.

Most have been repeatedly displaced since, as the feared paramilitaries moved further and further south.

"We're going back!" crowds in the de facto capital of Port Sudan on the Red Sea shouted in the street on Saturday after the army's announcements.

The RSF still holds most of the rest of the central agricultural state, as well as nearly all of Sudan's western Darfur region and swathes of the country's south.

The army controls the north and east, as well as parts of the capital.