MOSCOW, September 16 (RIA Novosti) – The start of the school year in Iraq has been postponed until October 22 due to security concerns and a shortage of school buildings, many of which are housing refugees from areas under the control of Islamic State (IS) militants, the Iraqi Education Ministry said Tuesday.
"The start of the school year is being delayed until the end of October. Moreover, we can offer guarantees only with regard to regions under the control of the government. On the territories seized by IS militants school will probably not start in the near future," an official representative of Iraq's Ministry of Education said.
"There aren't enough educational buildings, we still need to solve that problem somehow," the representative said, noting that many of the middle school buildings in Iraq now offer temporary housing for refugees fleeing the territories where IS militants are active.
The Kurdistan region of Iraq has received more than 850,000 internally displaced people (IDP) since the beginning of the year, according to the United Nations.
"More than 650 schools in Dohuk Governorate [are] now hosting IDPs, thousands of Kurdish school children did not start school on September 10 as scheduled," UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Valerie Amos said Sunday.
The United Nations estimates that, in total, up to 1.8 million people have been displaced in Iraq since January, 2014, amid IS advances.
The IS militant group, also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) or the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), has been fighting the Syrian government since 2012 and started launching attacks in northern and western Iraq in June, 2014. IS militants have seized vast areas in both countries and have proclaimed an Islamic caliphate on all the territories under its control, forcing thousands of people, mostly member of ethnic and religious minorities, to flee.
