Students in Syria's opposition-held northwest headed back to school on Saturday, three weeks after two major earthquakes centered in Türkiye's Kahramanmaraş province devastated the region.
Many schools were turned into temporary shelters following the magnitude 7.7 and 7.6 earthquakes that struck Türkiye and neighboring parts of Syria on Feb. 6 and killed at least 50,000 people.
The quake left hundreds of thousands of people homeless in the area, many of whom had already been displaced by Syria's 12-year-long war. Owing to that conflict, the opposition-held area has also struggled to receive urgently needed humanitarian aid.
Many students were absent from their classes on Saturday as their homes were damaged by the quake and their families now reside far away from the schools, said Abdulkafi Al-Hamdou a citizen journalist in the opposition-held region.
"Some students were worried about being inside the building and were on edge whenever they heard a sound such as a desk being moved. Many students are suffering from severe fear and anxiety. They are still in shock," Al-Hamdou said by telephone while visiting a school.
An official with the education department in the region, Ziad al-Omar, said 39 teachers and 421 students were killed by the earthquake. He added that some 250 schools suffered damage, including 203 that were partially destroyed and 46 that had cracks on walls, though the structures were still standing.
Over the past few days, displaced people were asked to leave schools, and many moved into shelters to live in tents. But prices of tents have been shooting up amid shortages and sell for about $200 or four times above pre-earthquake prices. A solid tent with metal stands can cost up to $400, in a region where more than 90% of the population lives in poverty and rely on aid for food and medicine.
Education officials in opposition-held Idlib said the last two hours on Saturday and Sunday will be used to train students on how to evacuate buildings during earthquakes.
One of those who lost a home in the quake is Ayesha, a resident of the town of Atareb in rural Aleppo, who had to evacuate her home to live in a tent. She told The Associated Press that the temporary shelter offered to her extended family of 13 people had to be evacuated because organizers said schools are about to resume, and the courtyard – where tents had been set up – had to be vacated.
"They gave us a tent in a school. Then they said the students have to return and they started evacuating us," she said, giving only her first name like most women in the conservative area.
Having a big family, Ayesha rented a small house on the edge of Atareb but four days after they moved there, a new 6.4-magnitude earthquake struck on Monday. "The house, thankfully didn’t collapse, but the walls have cracks. The ceiling remained in place," she said.
Since then, the family has set up a tent in the street out of fear of more aftershocks.
According to the opposition’s Syrian Civil Defense, also known as White Helmets, the earthquake killed 2,274 people and injured more than 12,400 in the opposition-held region. The quake also destroyed 550 buildings and heavily damaged at least 1,570 others.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 6,720 were killed in Syria, including 2,234 in regime-held areas and 4,526 in the areas controlled by the opposition, mainly in north-west Syria.
The total death toll of the earthquake is estimated to surpass 50,000 people in Türkiye and Syria – with the vast majority of deaths in Türkiye.