Siege of government halts educational process in Syria’s Aleppo
QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – Schools suspended on Saturday in northern Aleppo countryside, locally known as Shahba Region, due to severe lack of fuel which resulted from the siege imposed by the Syrian government on the region.
Education Board, affiliated with the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), said in a statement on X that the educational process is halted due to fuel shortage.
Fadel Jawish, co-chair of the Education Board, said that villages in Shahba Region are far from each other, as each village is 5-6 km far from the other. He stressed that not all villages have schools.
Students and teachers go to schools via the board’s cars. However, loss of fuel led to complete halt of transportation, therefore, those students and teachers would not be able to go to schools. As a result, education process were halted and schools were closed, according to Jawish.
About 110,000 IDPs reside in over 50 villages and towns in Shahba Region and the five camps of Barkhodan, Sardam, Afrin, al-Awda, and Shahba, following Afrin’s invasion in 2018 in a military operation dubbed “Olive Branch” by Turkey along with its affiliated armed opposition factions, aka the Syrian National Army (SNA).
The AANES frequently sends fuel tankers to the besieged areas in Aleppo but the government forces prevent their entry, leading to shortage in the substance. This negatively affects the resident’s lives, especially in the winter, as power generators are operated only two hours per day.
The co-chair pointed out that they cannot replace teaching in person with teaching online, as there is no good internet or electricity. The region has suffered from power outage for three days due to lack of fuel, he added.
Most of the schools in those villages are abandoned houses that are rented from their owners at the aim of continuing the teaching process.