By Samer Yassin
HASAKAH, Syria (North Press) – Around 1,000 children in the village of Tel Hifyan (al-Asfouriyah) are deprived of attending the village school, which has been transformed into a shelter housing IDPs from the city of Sere Kaniye (Ras al-Ain) and its surrounding areas, in northeastern Syria.
These IDPs were displaced after Turkish forces and their affiliated factions of the Syrian National Army (SNA) occupied the Sere Kaniye region in October 2019 after a military operation dubbed ‘Olive Branch’. The operation, which also targeted the Tel Abyad region, caused the displacement of approximately 300,000 original inhabitants.
For five years, IDPs from Sere Kaniye have resided in the school of the village of Tel Hifyan, located near the town of Tel Tamr, in northern Hasakah.
Illiterate Children
Zahra Ismail, 38, a mother of five children and a resident of the village, has expressed concern regarding the situation as she does not want her children to grow up illiterate.
“I have a daughter who is over eight years old, twin daughters who are seven, and another son and daughter. All of them have been completely deprived of education thus far. They do not know how to read and write at all. I fear that this situation will persist, and my children will remain illiterate, just like me,” she informed North Press.
“We have repeatedly demanded a solution for those IDPs living in the school, and we have received promises, but so far, we have yet to see any results. We suffer a lot from the lack of a school or a facility to educate our children. An entire generation is at risk of being deprived of education and falling into ignorance unless a solution is found,” Ismail added.
Ismail noted that the village has a qualified teaching staff capable of teaching the approximately 1,000 children from various age groups in the village. However, due to the lack of a school, the teachers have no choice but to travel to other villages to teach.
Fatima al-Hamad, who is also a mother of five children, shed light on older students who have been deprived of education. “There are children who have been out of school since first grade until now. It has been five years, and these students should have progressed to sixth grade by now.”
She told North Press that they formed a delegation of mothers and demanded the Tel Tamr Local Council and the Tel Tamr School Administration, both bodies are affiliated with the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), to find a solution, either by opening another school or relocating the IDPs to other places. So far, however, there has been no response.
Obstacles
The Co-chair of the Tel Tamr School Administration, Bahiya Maamo, told North Press that housing IDPs in schools was the only viable option to address the humanitarian crisis at the time.
Maamo added that while some schools have been reopened, the problem persists in several villages, including Tel Hifyan.
She asked the villagers to comprehend the IDPs’ difficult situation, adding they have been working, along with the AANES Education Board, to address the problem.
“As we are trying to find quick solutions for this dilemma, such as relocating the IDPs to other places, residents must understand the plight of a displaced person,” she noted.