Fighting shuts Arkansas-linked Syria school

With barrel bombs raining from the sky and government troops advancing, an Arkansan-funded Syrian kindergarten has been forced to close its doors.

It’s not clear when the students and teachers will be able to return, supporters say.

Thursday was supposed to be the first day of classes at the Wisdom House school, which serves orphans and other children displaced by eight years of civil war.

But the school is in Idlib province, the last major rebel stronghold, an area increasingly under fire.

“All of our operations have been suspended and classes canceled temporarily as we continue to monitor the situation,” said Wisdom House project manager Natalie Larrison of Little Rock.

A cease-fire briefly halted the barrage earlier this month. But the airstrikes soon resumed.

Last week, an airstrike claimed the life of a former student, 8-year-old Ahmad Alali, Larrison said. Another former student, 7-year-old Linda Alfatouh, was wounded but survived, she said.

Overall, 16 civilians died in Syria that day, including nine children and three women, according to the Syrian Network for Human Rights, a London-based group that tracks casualties.

Since late April, more than 500 civilian lives have been lost, a United Nations official said last week.

The death toll, after years of war, is high — 400,000 or more, by one United Nations estimate.

With fighting escalating and the town a target, its inhabitants are seeking refuge, Larrison said.

“They’ve either fled north where, most likely, they’ll live in tents. Or they’re underground, hiding in bunkers,” she said.

Wisdom House is affiliated with the Syrian Emergency Task Force.

The nonprofit group, which opposes the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad, has offices in Washington, D.C., as well as Little Rock.

Larrison serves as the group’s director of outreach.

Mouaz Moustafa, the group’s executive director, was born in Damascus but emigrated to the United States when he was 12 years old. He attended junior high in Fort Smith, high school in Hot Springs and college in Walnut Ridge and Conway before moving to the nation’s capital.

For three years, Wisdom House has been an oasis in the war zone, providing one year of schooling for roughly 400 young Syrians.

Conway residents decided to create the school after hearing a 2016 presentation by Moustafa. Eventually, supporters from across the state signed on.

“Arkansas has been a beating heart for humanitarian work in Syria, specifically in Idlib,” Moustafa said.

In 2017, the organization opened a center to serve women in Idlib province. The center’s windows were shattered by recent bombings and its furniture was destroyed, Larrison said.

So far, supporters have raised more than $100,000 to aid the Syrian women and children, according to an estimate by Wisdom House Working Group Chairman Jerry Adams of Conway.

The children Wisdom House serves have endured incredible suffering, Adams said.

“When we hear airplanes, we think of people traveling. When they hear airplanes, it only means bombing,” he said.

“A 7-year-old in this Idlib province town has known nothing but war.”

Earlier this week , a spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that the push into Idlib “could trigger a new wave of human suffering, possibly impacting up to 3 million civilians.”

The U.N. chief was said to condemn “continued attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure, including on health-care and educational facilities.”

Wisdom House supporters plan to hold a vigil on the steps of the Arkansas Capitol at 6:30 p.m.Sunday, Larrison said.

Moustafa, meanwhile, is urging Washington to take action.

“The U.S. government, members of Congress [and] the American people should call for an end to the killing of civilians in Idlib. That should be a red line,” he said.

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