Children going to the Al-Amel primary school have to take Baghdad’s airport road, considered the most dangerous in all of Iraq. But that’s just one of the many threats they face in the war-torn city.
”I dream there’s an explosion, a big one. Then I wake up and I’m scared,” said eight-year-old Nour as she sat in a school classroom in southwest Baghdad.
Like many of her classmates, the little girl is traumatised by the constant attacks and frequent kidnappings that take place in Baghdad and she trembles every time a US helicopter passes overhead.
Iraq’s children are paying a heavy price in the insurgency that has gripped the country since the ouster last year of Saddam Hussein. Thirty-seven children were among 42 people killed in this area in September by a car bomb.
Security guards now check every person and inspect every vehicle before they enter the school compound.
”We’re near the airport road where there are a lot of car bomb attacks. Most of our pupils have to take this road to get to school,” said deputy head Azhar Akmush as she thanked God that none of her pupils had so far been killed.
Kidnappings are also a constant worry.
”One of our pupils, a 12-year-old, was held hostage for three days and was only released when his family paid a ransom of $20 000,” she said.
”Many parents have decided not to send their children to school any more because they’re afraid of kidnappings.”
In one classroom, about 30 boys and girls sit quietly at their wooden desks.
”I’m afraid of explosions,” said Sanaa.
”I’m afraid of kidnappings,” said Amir.
”When I hear explosions, I start to tremble and I want to go home,” said Nour.
Their 25-year-old teacher, Ines Saleh, also grew up with a major conflict as the persistent backdrop. She was a child during the 1980-1988 war between Iran and Iraq, a war that neither side won and which left hundreds of thousands dead.
By remaining calm, she tries to reassure her pupils whenever they hear a bomb going off or a helicopter flying by.
”I just carry on as if nothing had happened,” she said.
But she says she is alarmed at the idea that schools could become an insurgent target if they are used, as planned, as polling booths in the elections set for January 30, Iraq’s first free vote in half a century.
”We’ve already received threats here, as have other schools,” she said.
In Baghdad’s Ibn Rushd hospital, Dr Mohammad al-Baghdadi, the head of the children’s psychiatric service, every day receives about five children suffering from behavioural problems caused by the violence that surrounds them.
”There’s been a significant rise in the number of disturbed children,” he said, citing a lack of child psychologists in the Iraqi capital.
Dr Hashim Zaini, the hospital’s director, said it was impossible to evaluate the scale of the problem because statistics were not being kept on a national or even city level.
Another reason, said Baghdadi, was that parents most often did not report their children’s psychological problems because they themselves were too caught up with their own struggle to get by in the strife-torn city.
As classes finish for the day in Al-Amel, mothers stand outside, waiting for their children.
”The children don’t play outside any more,” said one.
”As soon as she leaves my side, my daughter is frightened,” said another. – Sapa-AFP