Baghdad Schoolyard No Haven From Fear

Day’s end at the Faraqid Elementary School comes off with the speed and precision of a well-rehearsed evacuation.

Just before noon, about 325 children stream through the briefly unlocked side gate onto a street bracketed by barbed wire and concrete barricades. A crowd of parents and drivers quickly hustles them into waiting cars, and by 12:07, the area is deserted, except for security guard Haidar Mohammed.

“After they leave here, they go straight home to their houses and stay there until school tomorrow,” Mohammed said. “It’s like they’re in jail.”

For the estimated 4.5 million Iraqi schoolchildren, the world outside their classrooms and homes has all but disappeared. A landscape littered with threats both targeted and general has left parents struggling to shelter their own -- with some wondering if an education is worth the risk.

Just 60% of students attended the first day of the school year on Oct. 2, and even that exceeded Education Minister Sami Mudhaffar’s expectations. Attendance levels rose sharply after the first two days, Mudhaffar said, and now stand at more than 80%.

Still, the free-floating dangers of contemporary Baghdad were brought into focus on just the third day of the term at Faraqid school. A nearby car bombing thudded through the building and shattered a window. Screaming children rushed out to the courtyard before teachers could herd them back to the classrooms and instill calm. A frightened instructor was sent home so she wouldn’t panic the students. Only one child, whose home was damaged in the blast, stayed home the next day.

Some parents say they’re just one more school-related incident away from keeping their children at home.

“I’m still thinking about it,” said Ibtisam Ibrahim, an architect who waited nervously outside the school for her two sons. “I only bring them here to make them feel like they have a normal life.”

The list of potential threats is familiar to any Iraqi citizen, and Ibrahim runs through the litany: “Kidnapping, killing, explosions, everything.”

The possibility of a large-scale exodus of students carries implications beyond the classroom. An electoral expert who has worked in Iraq said election organizers in conflict-torn countries often track school enrollment as “an indication of the level of resolve or confidence.”

A widespread withdrawal of students, the expert said, indicates “a lack of confidence in the state to perform its most fundamental function” -- protecting the lives of its citizens.

Parental fears of violence or kidnapping have even become the subject of dark humor in the press. A cartoon last week in the Al Sabah daily depicted a father marching off to school behind his three children, armed with a pistol and a machine gun. The mother, carrying a wooden club, says, “I’m afraid they’ll be kidnapped and the captors will demand our ration cards.”

The concerns about violence are particularly dire at Faraqid, a whitewashed, one-story compound that occupies one of the least desirable locations in the battered capital.

Directly in front of the school lies the notorious road to Baghdad’s international airport, a thoroughfare that has seen frequent ambushes of American vehicles carrying foreign contractors and government officials.

Behind the schoolyard runs the high, concrete wall of Qadisseya, a heavily fortified complex of identical, ranch-style homes that houses members of the Iraqi interim government -- a natural target for a relentless insurgency that views government officials as collaborators with U.S.-led forces. Qadisseya comes under regular mortar attack, and the beige hump of a U.S. armored vehicle squatting at the gate is visible over the schoolyard walls. “It’s a location exposed to attack at any moment,” said Gaylan Samarraie, the administrative director of southwest Baghdad schools.

During recess, the children chatter and play in the bare, concrete yard as teachers and security guards monitor the edges to prevent anyone from straying too close to the walls that enclose the sun-blasted area.

“They’re afraid somebody’s going to attack the tank and we’ll be affected,” said 10-year-old Adallah Ahmed.

Assistant Principal Amira Sabri said five sets of parents planned to transfer their children out of the school because of safety fears but attendance is high otherwise.

The challenge is to keep the students safe. Locked metal gates greet visitors, and the school has its own armed guards as well as guards assigned by the Education Ministry. The children are forbidden to approach the Qadisseya side of the yard or pick up strange objects. Administrators are working to get the U.S. to move the tank.

With all the precautions, Sabri offers what must seem like cold comfort to many parents. “They may be safer in school than at home,” she said.

Inside grammar teacher Mona Mahmoud’s classroom, where students stood up in unison to greet a visitor, the children know the threats as well as anyone.

Zeinab Ali, 9, said her parents are “afraid I’ll be hurt by shrapnel.” Her classmate Ahmed Moayad, asked what the future of his country holds, replied, “Many explosions and people might be assassinated.”

Once-regular events such as school assemblies and visits to museums or the Baghdad Zoo now seem like memories of a bygone era. The children, their teacher said, used to beg to be taken on field trips. Now, nobody asks.

Outside Faraqid’s walls, parents and drivers wait in an atmosphere of dread. As recently as last year, students would loiter outside playing and walk home alone. Now even those who live two streets away are delivered door to door by a parent or trusted driver.

The whole group tenses up as a loud bang echoes nearby and a green SUV rolls to a slow stop on the airport highway. Parents trade glances in the unspoken fear that some VIP is being ambushed less than 100 yards away.

They exchange rueful smiles as the driver gets out and begins dodging traffic to retrieve the block of wood that fell off the roof with a thud.