At the Martyrs’ School near Tripoli, teachers and parents are using the limited means at hand to repair buildings devastated by a year-long battle for the Libyan capital.
Some of the walls have been repainted, furniture has been installed and aging computer screens dusted off, but the roofs and other walls, pockmarked by gunfire and mortar blasts, remain grim reminders of the recent fighting.
“We didn’t want to sit and wait for help,” said Najah al-Kabir, a teaching coordinator in a patterned jallaba gown and a hijab.
Photo: AFP
She is taking part in a refurbishment campaign launched by staff and joined by enthusiastic parents of students from the surrounding Ain Zara district.
“We’re one family,” al-Kabir said, standing in the playground of the primary school, damaged by weeks of artillery fire. “This school was our second home.”
When Libyan National Army Commander Khalifa Haftar launched an offensive in April last year to seize the capital from the UN-recognized Government of National Accord (GNA), Ain Zara found itself on the front line.
The fighting degenerated into a long battle of attrition on the outskirts of Tripoli and lasted until June this year, when pro-GNA forces ended the stalemate by pushing Haftar’s forces back eastward.
By the time the fighting ended, the school had been reduced to “ruins,” al-Kabir said.
“It needed to be rebuilt quickly,” she added.
The UN International Children’s Emergency Fund warned earlier this year that “attacks against schools and the threat of violence have led to [school] closures and left almost 200,000 children out of the classroom.”
The Martyrs’ School is one of about 100 schools fully or partly destroyed during the offensive by Haftar, backed by Russia and the United Arab Emirates.
Pro-GNA armed groups, whose counteroffensive was spurred by Turkey, used some schools to stock arms or as observation posts.
By the end of the fighting, the Martyrs’ School was “in a terrible state,” said head teacher Saleh al-Badri.
The establishment serves 1,500 students in an area 3km from the next school, making it “important to reopen it as soon as possible,” he said.
Mahmoud Abdelkhalek, who lives nearby and sends his three sons to the school, was keen to get involved.
“It seemed important that everyone get involved to fix it,” he said. “A collective effort has brought it back to life.”
The effort to reopen is well underway, with some teachers and parents donating money while others have helped with DIY skills.
However, “the money has run out and we’re waiting for more funds,” al-Badri said.
Pupils had been set to return early next month, but with efforts slowed by the COVID-19 pandemic, hopes are pinned on January.
If the funds are found, that would give volunteers time to fix the electrics and renovate the classrooms — as well as plastering over the remaining bullet holes and the scars left by rockets and mortar fire.
Al-Kabir said that there is also other damage to be addressed: The psychological impact the fighting has had on pupils.
“Most of them have suffered the horrors of war and displacement,” she said.
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