Thousands of children risk missing out on their education in northwestern Syria after a months-long regime assault on Idlib that has closed dozens of schools, a charity said.
A fragile ceasefire has held in the Idlib region since Saturday, following four months of air strikes that have killed hundreds of civilians and caused mass displacement.
"Thousands of children due to start the school year in northwest Syria may not have access to education" after the latest violence, Save the Children said.
Classes are set to start at the end of September, but just over half of the region's 1,193 schools can still operate, it said.
"As the new school year starts, the remaining functional schools can only accommodate up to 300,000 of the 650,000 school-age children," it said.
The heavy bombardment since late April has damaged or impacted 87 educational facilities, the UK-based NGO said.
A further 200 schools are being used as shelters for those displaced by the fighting, it added.
The Idlib region is home to some three million people, almost half of whom have been displaced from other parts of Syria in the country's eight-year war.
Children make up nearly half of the region's total population, the United Nations says.
"Teachers are telling us that parents are pleading with them to shut schools for fear of them being attacked," the group's Syria country director Sonia Khush said.
"Many children are dealing with losing their homes, loss and grief. They should not have to fear losing their lives whilst they try to learn," she added.
UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet says her office has tallied more than 1,000 civilian deaths in northern Syria over the last four months, the majority of them due to air strikes and ground attacks by President Bashar al-Assad‘s forces and their allies.
Bachelet, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, told reporters in Geneva on Wednesday that 1,089 civilians were killed in the war-battered country between April 29 and August 29, including 304 children.
After bombardment damaging schools or forcing them to close, many parents are scared to send their children to those still open, Save the Children said.
In late April, Syrian forces, backed by Russia since 2015, began an offensive in the region in an attempt to capture the strategic area, which lies on a key highway connecting Damascus with the northern city of Aleppo.
Bachelet’s spoke hours after Save the Children said in a report that more than half of the children in Idlib province will likely be unable to attend school this year as fighting between rebel groups and government forces destroyed hundreds of learning facilities.
The aid group said 87 education facilities were destroyed and hundreds damaged during months of fighting.
Idlib is home to three million people, half of whom are already internally displaced from areas previously captured by forces loyal to Assad.
The UN says two-thirds of those currently in the war-torn province are women and children.
A unilateral ceasefire called by Russia on Saturday, which briefly paused the Syrian regime advance on rebel-controlled areas, has done little to quell fears of a humanitarian catastrophe.
The ceasefire was yet another attempt to avert a full-blown Syrian offensive, which the UN has said would result in one of the worst humanitarian “nightmares” in Syria’s eight-year conflict.
A previous ceasefire brokered in August ended just days after it began.
Russia intervened in Syria’s long-running conflict almost four years ago in support of Assad, while Turkey has long backed rebels in Idlib. The two countries co-sponsored a de-escalation agreement for Idlib that has been in place since September last year, but faltered in recent months.
Eight years of war in Syria have killed 560,000 people and driven half the pre-war population of 22 million from their homes, including more than 6 million as refugees to neighbouring countries.
(With The New Arab, Agencies)
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