Schools Shut, Exams Cancelled: War Shatters Sudan’s Education Sector 

Halime Adam Moussa, a Sudanese refugee who is seeking refuge in Chad for a second time, walks out of her shelter while children play, near the border between Sudan and Chad in Koufroun, Chad, May 10, 2023. (Reuters)
Halime Adam Moussa, a Sudanese refugee who is seeking refuge in Chad for a second time, walks out of her shelter while children play, near the border between Sudan and Chad in Koufroun, Chad, May 10, 2023. (Reuters)
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Schools Shut, Exams Cancelled: War Shatters Sudan’s Education Sector 

Halime Adam Moussa, a Sudanese refugee who is seeking refuge in Chad for a second time, walks out of her shelter while children play, near the border between Sudan and Chad in Koufroun, Chad, May 10, 2023. (Reuters)
Halime Adam Moussa, a Sudanese refugee who is seeking refuge in Chad for a second time, walks out of her shelter while children play, near the border between Sudan and Chad in Koufroun, Chad, May 10, 2023. (Reuters)

When war in Sudan's capital forced Sarah al-Sharif and her family to flee, the 19-year-old information technology student left her books and computer behind.

Now in Sennar, 30km (18 miles) southeast of Khartoum, she lacks a stable internet connection or passport to travel abroad and like many others sees no way of continuing her studies while fighting between rival military factions rages.

The conflict, which began in mid-April, has pushed Sudan's faltering education system into a state of collapse, with many schools shut down or repurposed to host displaced people, and most national end-of-year exams cancelled.

"This war has spelled the end of education in Sudan, and things have turned from bad to impossible," said Sharif.

The conflict has brought daily battles to the streets of Khartoum, a revival of ethnically-targeted attacks in Darfur, and the displacement of more than 4 million people within Sudan and across its borders.

According to Simone Vis of UNICEF in Sudan, there are "an alarming number of reports that both boys and girls are being recruited by armed groups".

At least 89 schools across seven states are being used as shelters for the displaced, according the United Nations, raising fears that many children will have no access to schools in the new academic year and could be exposed to child labor and abuse.

On Wednesday, the education minister cancelled most end of year school exams in war-affected areas.

"In the current circumstances, anyone would see that it is impossible to have a new academic year," said Sahar Abdullah, a displaced teacher from Khartoum also seeking refuge in Sennar.

Teachers strike

Even before the war between Sudan's army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), Save The Children ranked Sudan as one of the top four countries globally where education was at extreme risk.

Now the number of children out of school has risen to 9 million from 6.9 million, more than one million school-aged children have been displaced and at least 10,400 schools have been closed since fighting started, according to the charity.

While Khartoum has a proud intellectual tradition, the schooling system had been run down by underinvestment, political interference and a grinding economic crisis. It was then disrupted by street protests before and after the 2019 ousting of former leader Omar al-Bashir, by unusually heavy floods in 2020 and by the coronavirus pandemic.

Due to overcrowded school classrooms, "some of the students would bring chairs with them to class. There weren't enough textbooks to help teachers do their job," said Abdullah, the displaced teacher.

State-employed teachers staged a three-month strike over pay and working conditions just before the war broke out. As many as 300,000 teachers have not been paid since March, a senior member of the Sudanese Teachers' Committee said.

"I haven't been paid a salary in four months, and I have no idea when I'll return to work," said Fatima Mohamed, a displaced teacher who fled Khartoum to Gedaraf state after her school was overtaken by the RSF.

'Wait and hope'

Despite the interruptions in recent years, Rabab Nasreldeen had managed to get to the third year of law studies at the University of Khartoum when the war broke out.

Then she too had to flee, abandoning educational certificates and papers that might allow her to continue studying elsewhere. "The only option we have is to wait and hope for the best," she said.

Aid workers are trying to help alleviate the crisis, setting up safe learning spaces and providing children with psychosocial support.

Education Cannot Wait, the UN global fund dedicated to education in emergencies, has raised $12.5 million and aims to provide educational services for 120,000 children in Sudan and neighboring countries.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, parents in wealthy countries "didn't want the children to wait a year or a month for their education," said Yasmine Sherif, the fund's executive director.

"So why should we expect them (in Sudan) to wait for education until the conflict is over?"

Some of those who have fled Sudan are seeking entry to schools and universities outside its borders, including in Egypt. But in Chad, where more than 377,000 refugees have arrived, there are no such options.

"I cannot go back to continue my education and I lost contact with my family," Khalifa Adam, a displaced student who escaped to Adre, Chad from Darfur, told Reuters. "I was told I can continue studying online but the internet connection here in Adre is very bad."



Early US Intelligence Report Suggests US Strikes Only Set Back Iran’s Nuclear Program by Months

A woman walks past a residential building that was hit in an Israeli strike covered with a big Iranian flag, in Tehran on June 25, 2025. (AFP)
A woman walks past a residential building that was hit in an Israeli strike covered with a big Iranian flag, in Tehran on June 25, 2025. (AFP)
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Early US Intelligence Report Suggests US Strikes Only Set Back Iran’s Nuclear Program by Months

A woman walks past a residential building that was hit in an Israeli strike covered with a big Iranian flag, in Tehran on June 25, 2025. (AFP)
A woman walks past a residential building that was hit in an Israeli strike covered with a big Iranian flag, in Tehran on June 25, 2025. (AFP)

A US intelligence report suggests that Iran’s nuclear program has been set back only a few months after US strikes and was not “completely and fully obliterated” as President Donald Trump has said, according to two people familiar with the early assessment.

The report issued by the Defense Intelligence Agency on Monday contradicts statements from Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the status of Iran's nuclear facilities. According to the people, the report found that while the Sunday strikes at the Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan nuclear sites did significant damage, the facilities were not totally destroyed. The people were not authorized to address the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The White House rejected the DIA assessment, calling it “flat-out wrong.” On Wednesday, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said in a post on X that “New intelligence confirms” what Trump has stated: “Iran’s nuclear facilities have been destroyed. If the Iranians chose to rebuild, they would have to rebuild all three facilities (Natanz, Fordo, Esfahan) entirely, which would likely take years to do.”

Gabbard’s office declined to respond to questions about the details of the new intelligence, or whether it would be declassified and released publicly.

The office of the director of national intelligence coordinates the work of the nation’s 18 intelligence agencies, including the DIA, which is the intelligence arm of the Defense Department, responsible for producing intelligence on foreign militaries and the capabilities of adversaries.

The DIA did not respond to requests for comment.

The US has held out hope of restarting negotiations with Iran to convince it to give up its nuclear program entirely, but some experts fear that the US strikes and the potential of Iran retaining some of its capabilities could push Tehran toward developing a functioning weapon.

The assessment also suggests that at least some of Iran’s highly enriched uranium, necessary for creating a nuclear weapon, was moved out of multiple sites before the US strikes and survived, and it found that Iran’s centrifuges, which are required to further enrich uranium to weapons-grade levels, are largely intact, according to the people.

At the deeply buried Fordo uranium enrichment plant, where US B-2 stealth bombers dropped several 30,000-pound bunker-buster bombs, the entrance collapsed and infrastructure was damaged, but the underground infrastructure was not destroyed, the assessment found. The people said that intelligence officials had warned of such an outcome in previous assessments ahead of the strike on Fordo.

The White House pushes back Trump defended his characterization of the strike's impact.

“It was obliteration, and you’ll see that,” Trump told reporters while attending the NATO summit in the Netherlands. He said the intelligence was “very inconclusive” and described media outlets as “scum” for reporting on it.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who was also at the NATO summit, said there would be an investigation into how the intelligence assessment leaked and dismissed it as “preliminary” and “low confidence.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said, “These leakers are professional stabbers.”

The intelligence assessment was first reported by CNN on Tuesday.

The Israel Atomic Energy Commission said its assessment was that the US and Israeli strikes have “set back Iran’s ability to develop nuclear weapons by many years.” It did not give evidence to back up its claim.

Trump special envoy Steve Witkoff, who said he has read damage assessment reports from US intelligence and other nations, reiterated Tuesday that the strikes had deprived Iran of the ability to develop a weapon and called it outrageous that the US assessment was shared with reporters.

“It’s treasonous so it ought to be investigated,” Witkoff said on Fox News Channel.

Trump has said in comments and posts on social media in recent days, including Tuesday, that the strike left the sites in Iran “totally destroyed” and that Iran will never rebuild its nuclear facilities.

Netanyahu said Tuesday in a televised statement: “For dozens of years I promised you that Iran would not have nuclear weapons and indeed ... we brought to ruin Iran’s nuclear program." He said the US joining Israel was “historic” and thanked Trump.

Outside experts had suspected Iran had likely already hidden the core components of its nuclear program as it stared down the possibility that American bunker-buster bombs could be used on its nuclear sites.

Bulldozers and trucks visible in satellite imagery taken just days before the strikes have fueled speculation among experts that Iran may have transferred its half-ton stockpile of enriched uranium to an unknown location. And the incomplete destruction of the nuclear sites could still leave the country with the capacity to spin up weapons-grade uranium and develop a bomb.

Iran has maintained that its nuclear program is peaceful, but it has enriched significant quantities of uranium beyond the levels required for any civilian use. The US and others assessed prior to the US strikes that Iran’s theocratic leadership had not yet ordered the country to pursue an operational nuclear weapon, but the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency has repeatedly warned that Iran has enough enriched uranium to make several nuclear bombs should it choose to do so.

Vice President JD Vance said in a Monday interview on Fox News Channel that even if Iran is still in control of its stockpile of 408.6 kilograms (900.8 pounds) of enriched uranium, which is just short of weapons-grade, the US has cut off Iran's ability to convert it to a nuclear weapon.

“If they have 60% enriched uranium, but they don’t have the ability to enrich it to 90%, and, further, they don’t have the ability to convert that to a nuclear weapon, that is mission success. That is the obliteration of their nuclear program, which is why the president, I think, rightly is using that term,” Vance said.

Approximately 42 kilograms of 60% enriched uranium is theoretically enough to produce one atomic bomb if enriched further to 90%, according to the UN nuclear watchdog.

What experts say Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi informed UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi on June 13 — the day Israel launched its military campaign against Iran — that Tehran would “adopt special measures to protect our nuclear equipment and materials.”

American satellite imagery and analysis firm Maxar Technologies said its satellites photographed trucks and bulldozers at the Fordo site beginning on June 19, three days before the Americans struck.

Subsequent imagery “revealed that the tunnel entrances into the underground complex had been sealed off with dirt prior to the US airstrikes,” said Stephen Wood, senior director at Maxar. “We believe that some of the trucks seen on 19 June were carrying dirt to be used as part of that operation.”

Some experts say those trucks could also have been used to move out Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile.

“It is plausible that Iran moved the material enriched to 60% out of Fordo and loaded it on a truck,” said Eric Brewer, a former US intelligence analyst and now deputy vice president at the Nuclear Threat Initiative.

Iran could also have moved other equipment, including centrifuges, he said, noting that while enriched uranium, which is stored in fortified canisters, is relatively easy to transport, delicate centrifuges are more challenging to move without inflicting damage.

Apart from its enriched uranium stockpile, over the past four years Iran has produced the centrifuges key to enrichment without oversight from the UN nuclear watchdog.

Iran also announced on June 12 that it has built and will activate a third nuclear enrichment facility. IAEA chief Grossi said the facility was located in Isfahan, a place where Iran has several other nuclear sites. After being bombarded by both the Israelis and the Americans, it is unclear if, or how quickly, Isfahan’s facilities, including tunnels, could become operational.

But given all of the equipment and material likely still under Iran’s control, this offers Tehran “a pretty solid foundation for a reconstituted covert program and for getting a bomb,” Brewer said.

Kelsey Davenport, director for nonproliferation policy at the Arms Control Association, a nonpartisan policy center, said that “if Iran had already diverted its centrifuges,” it can “build a covert enrichment facility with a small footprint and inject the 60% gas into those centrifuges and quickly enrich to weapons grade levels.”

But Brewer also underlined that if Iran launched a covert nuclear program, it would do so at a disadvantage, having lost to Israeli and American strikes vital equipment and personnel that are crucial for turning the enriched uranium into a functional nuclear weapon.