A little ago, when we attended here, this school used to be very good, now see how it looks? Everything is broken Children carrying their injured and dead colleagues to a room within the classroom of their recently destroyed school. We as the teachers, we were near the buildings and the students were having lunch in the school yard. We heard the sound of the Antonov bomber. Preceding there was unimaginable chaos, and we could not hold on.

The students were running in every direction and then the first bomb exploded near our school. Unfortunately, this school was not the only place to be hit by bombings that day. The airstrikes have been relentless, we have no peace of mind.

My name is Jawahir, I am 20 years old. I was studying in senior 1 but because of the constant bombing and war I had to stop. Right now, I don’t do much, there is neither work nor school. My name is Manal Badur Abass, and I am 17 years old. I was going to senior school, but when the war started, the bombs destroyed our school, all the classrooms and the surrounding areas. It was really nice here but because of the war everything has been destroyed, say a couple of friends as the reminisce at their ruined school. We lost many of our friends they say, our colleagues and many family members. It’s incredibly sad, because as you sit, in any given moment, the bombing may start, and you lose someone close to you.

You feel so powerless because there is nothing you can and could have done to save them. A lady with 2 daughters under 12, and a young child in arm inspects her home that has been completely ravaged when a bomb exploded on her home. She has lost everything she owns, among them her home, precious family memorabilia, clothing, food.

This utter devastation by aerial bombardments on civilians has left them not much choice. A teacher Mr Philip Kambal Angalo says, “We escape from Kuji to Yida. I was the headmaster of Kush primary school, a school for refugees. We had 17 teachers, but the student numbers were so large, and we were hoping for support for more teachers to offset the large student teacher ratio, but no help has been forthcoming. Many classrooms sit empty, because teachers are unwilling to volunteer.

Despite these challenges, we have pushed on so that our young people know and understand that we will never give up on them.