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CNN Live Saturday
Lack of Security in Baghdad Keeps Students From Attending School
Aired May 03, 2003 - 16:09 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Schools in Baghdad have opened for the first time since the coalition bombs started falling on the Iraqi capital but as CNN's Rym Brahimi reports the lack of security is keeping many of the city's children away from those classrooms.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RYM BRAHIMI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): You wouldn't know by the sight of all these kids outdoors that schools in Baghdad have just reopened. From her window in this modest neighborhood, one woman signals to us sporadic gunfire is what prevents here from sending her kids back. At the Janine (ph) Primary School across the road, few candidates.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): To be honest we're afraid for our children. This is the main reason any Iraqi father wouldn't let his kids go to school.
BRAHIMI: The school principal arrives to welcome those that have braved the lack of security to finish their school year. Her concern is putting the school back together after it's been looted.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): The globe, it's broken. Shouldn't it be forbidden to break this? It has America, Australia, Africa, Europe, not just Iraq. How are we going to teach the children?
BRAHIMI: Two blocks away in a school that wasn't looted, a handful of children register. The principal is hoping that within a week their numbers will have increased and they'll be able to finish their program.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): We're talking about an entire school year. We don't want these students to lose that year. It would really be a shame.
BRAHIMI: He's asked the children gathered in the classroom to spread the word it's time to go back to school.
Yakoub (ph) remembers his last English lesson.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hello, my name is Yakoub. What's your name?
BRAHIMI: And there are things he and his classmates may try to forget, like the mandatory slogans still on the school walls, "Down With America" or "There's no life without sun, no dignity without Saddam."
At the elite Baghdad High School occupied by U.S. troops just hours before students arrive, a couple of hundred pupils show up out of 1,300, ready for change.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A special study to Saddam Hussein's life, that's back, and something on his life and his regime and (unintelligible) for the other maybe regimes of the related countries around us and this maybe will not be anymore in our school.
BRAHIMI: Just one of many changes these school kids will witness in the years to come.
Rym Brahimi, CNN, Baghdad.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
School>
Aired May 3, 2003 - 16:09 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Schools in Baghdad have opened for the first time since the coalition bombs started falling on the Iraqi capital but as CNN's Rym Brahimi reports the lack of security is keeping many of the city's children away from those classrooms.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RYM BRAHIMI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): You wouldn't know by the sight of all these kids outdoors that schools in Baghdad have just reopened. From her window in this modest neighborhood, one woman signals to us sporadic gunfire is what prevents here from sending her kids back. At the Janine (ph) Primary School across the road, few candidates.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): To be honest we're afraid for our children. This is the main reason any Iraqi father wouldn't let his kids go to school.
BRAHIMI: The school principal arrives to welcome those that have braved the lack of security to finish their school year. Her concern is putting the school back together after it's been looted.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): The globe, it's broken. Shouldn't it be forbidden to break this? It has America, Australia, Africa, Europe, not just Iraq. How are we going to teach the children?
BRAHIMI: Two blocks away in a school that wasn't looted, a handful of children register. The principal is hoping that within a week their numbers will have increased and they'll be able to finish their program.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): We're talking about an entire school year. We don't want these students to lose that year. It would really be a shame.
BRAHIMI: He's asked the children gathered in the classroom to spread the word it's time to go back to school.
Yakoub (ph) remembers his last English lesson.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hello, my name is Yakoub. What's your name?
BRAHIMI: And there are things he and his classmates may try to forget, like the mandatory slogans still on the school walls, "Down With America" or "There's no life without sun, no dignity without Saddam."
At the elite Baghdad High School occupied by U.S. troops just hours before students arrive, a couple of hundred pupils show up out of 1,300, ready for change.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A special study to Saddam Hussein's life, that's back, and something on his life and his regime and (unintelligible) for the other maybe regimes of the related countries around us and this maybe will not be anymore in our school.
BRAHIMI: Just one of many changes these school kids will witness in the years to come.
Rym Brahimi, CNN, Baghdad.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
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