Ukrainian front-line students celebrate back-to-school despite ever-present air raid alarms

Just hours after a dawn air raid alarm rang through the city, Zaporizhzhia schoolchildren celebrated the traditional first day of school on Sunday.

With the front just 40 kilometers (25 miles) away, the war is never far from the minds of teachers and families at one school in the city. Because of a ban on large gatherings in the city, which is regularly struck by Russian artillery and missiles, only students starting their first and last years were allowed in the parade. The AP is not identifying the school for security reasons.

Wearing traditional embroidered Ukrainian shirts and carrying roses, the children lined up in pairs and held hands — each small student with a teenager. Despite the wartime restrictions, the entire ceremony was a celebration of Ukraine’s future.

Of the school’s 800 students, around 300 fled the war for safety abroad or elsewhere in Ukraine. The rest alternate one week of in-person study with one week online because the recently renovated bomb shelter can only accommodate around 250 people. Zaporizhzhia routinely spends hours each day under air raid alerts.

The school’s bomb shelter is about 75 meters (yards) away from the main school building, across an open playground. School director Kostiantyn Lypskyi said the youngest students attend in person every day and work in a classroom created just above the basement rooms, while the rest of the school operates in the main building.

“We prepared everything for the new school year. We equipped the bunker in case of air alarms, so children will have a safe space because our school will continue lessons during the air raid alarms in the bunker,” he said.

Sunday’s ceremony unfolded without problems and Olha Komarova-Lesko, the mother of an 11th grader and a 6th grader, said she was optimistic for the coming school year, which she described as the best solution under the circumstances.

“We are happy that the children had the chance go to the celebration today just as in the prewar times,” she said, “This is really exciting and joyful.”