(HRW) – Xarid was so determined to get an education, that he braved the daily dangers of the streets of Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, for as long as he could. But that all changed the day the Islamist insurgent group al-Shabab brought the war to his classroom. “Al-Shabab came into the compound of the school and told us to stay in class,” he told me when we met in a refugee camp across the border in Kenya. The fighters set up a rocket launcher in the playground and started launching rockets in the direction of government-held territory. For more than two hours, the students and teachers huddled in their classroom, terrified. Finally, the al-Shabab fighters released them but, as the students tried to flee, an incoming rocket exploded in the compound, killing eight.
A Challenge to Protect Schools During War
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