Falluja schools still in ruins; students study in tents

 

By Thair al-Asaad

 

Azzaman, June 6, 2005

 

Six months after the U.S. war on Falluja, many residents still live in refugee camps and students attend classes in tents.

 

Many school buildings, like almost everything else in the city, are heaps of ruin. They are without walls, doors or windows – the outcome of U.S. bombardment and aggression.

 

It is still hard to enter the city as visitors will need to pass through U.S. checkpoints which try to scrutinize anyone entering or leaving, using high-tech equipment.

 

I was standing in a long queue on the al-Jisir Entrance. Many students were waiting to enter the city.

 

“Everyday we wait here for at least one hour. The city is under curfew which ends at 08:00 a.m. U.S. troops are not nice. They try to humiliate us,” said Kahlil al-Talib, a high school student.

 

Another, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said U.S. troops subject everyone to “intensive scrutiny” before allowing them to pass.

 

“We are insulted by them (U.S. troops) and humiliated. You can be checked several times before heading to the city,” he said.

 

Thousands of students in the nearby towns and villages rely on the city for their high school education.

 

“There is no high school in our town and Falluja is the closest to us with such education. Still I walk for four kilometers to reach the checkpoint where I am made to wait for more than one hour. By the time I reach the new tent school, classes had already started,” he added.

 

Kareem Abdulhussein, head of the teachers union in the city, denied reports that the city was being reconstructed with U.S. money.

 

“There are no serious efforts to reconstruct the city and its schools. Contractors receive huge amounts of money but nothing is done,” he said.

 

Once in the city, I moved to Hay (district) al-Shuhada, scene of some of the most ferocious fighting in the November 2004 U.S. onslaught on the city.

 

The schools in this area were all destroyed. I asked what about the students, a resident pointed to a nearby partially damaged mosque where scores of tents were pitched.

 

“Our school was leveled down. We use a room in the mosque for administration and have the classes in tents,” said Ibrahim Sarhan, the principal of al-Bab School.

 

Karima Hassan said she tries her best to have all the classes for her all-girl school inside the mosque. Her all-girl Mafakhir School was destroyed.

 

I headed to Hay al-Julan where I saw two destroyed school buildings.

 

In the northern part of the city, there was less destruction as the residents said fighting in the area was “less severe” than in other quarters.

 

But still the school buildings there had sustained heavy damage.

 

It is not clear why the city schools have borne the brunt of the overwhelming damage.

 

I counted 65 school buildings which were eight heavily damaged or completely destroyed.

 

Falluja is still a ghost city because little has been done to undo the U.S. damage.

 

Officials say of the 30,000 houses that were damaged and nearly 5,000 that were completely destroyed only a few have been repaired.

 

Also very little has been done to repair the 8,500 businesses, 60 mosques and 20 government offices that were damaged.

 

“The situation is extremely bad,” said Abdulla Saleh, a senior education official in the city.

 

He said the few schools which survived the fighting were still being occupied by either U.S. or Iraqi forces.

 

“More than 9% of schools in Falluja have sustained varying degrees of damage … and so far only five have been repaired,” he said.