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The Human Education Culture and Fraternal Association (Insan Vakfı) has opened a school in northwestern Syria’s Idlib province for 900 children to attend.
Representatives from various nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), noteworthy individuals from the region and many students attended the opening of the school, which will provide young people in the region with an education at the primary and secondary school levels.
Association head Sinan Aktaş told Anadolu Agency (AA) that the school will educate 900 students across 13 grades.
“We transformed a 200-student school made of tents into a school where 900 students will receive education,” he highlighted, saying that the association plans to expand the school in the near future for further space.
Aktaş added that work on a sports area, park and other social buildings are ongoing.
Sixth-grade student Mohammed Zayin thanked everyone who had a role in the opening of the school.
Zayin said that he moved from Aleppo to Idlib following the Bashar Assad regime’s attacks.
“We had no school. We had to go a long way to attend school.”
Another student, who is an aspiring teacher, said that she was extremely happy to be able to play in the school’s yard.
For years, the Assad regime has ignored the needs and safety of the Syrian people, only eyeing further territorial gains and crushing the opposition. With this aim, the regime has for years bombed civilian facilities, including schools, hospitals and residential areas, causing the displacement of almost half of the country's population.
The situation is especially worrying in the last opposition bastion, Idlib, one of the main targets of the Assad regime.
The Idlib region is home to nearly 3 million people, two-thirds of them displaced from other parts of the country.
Nearly 75% of the total population in the opposition-held Idlib region depends on humanitarian aid to meet their basic needs, as 1.6 million people continue to live in camps or informal settlements, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said.
The Idlib de-escalation zone was forged under an agreement between Turkey and Russia. The area has been the subject of multiple cease-fire agreements, which the Assad regime and its allies have frequently violated./aa