100,000 Marawi kids fail to enroll

At least 100,000 children have not returned to school in Marawi City nearly a year after the government took back parts of the predominantly Muslim city from local terror groups trying to set up an Islamic State (IS) base there.

Only 21,000 students enrolled this year in public elementary and secondary schools in Marawi City and areas in the provinces of Lanao del Sur and Lanao del Norte that had been drawn into the war, too.

DISPLACED Children of Marawi play at an evacuation site for residents displaced by the war in the predominantly Muslim city

In Marawi, Bidder said at least 20 out of 69 public schools were destroyed during the five-month war between soldiers and IS-aligned members of Maute and Abu Sayyaf that reduced the core of the city to rubble.

Covering 250 hectares and spanning 24 villages, Marawi’s ground zero remained restricted to residents almost a year after soldiers declared victory against IS.