Kabul (AFP)

Madina, 16, was in English class when the first of two huge explosions rocked her school in Kabul at the beginning of July, throwing shards of glass at students: Taliban suicide bombers had just hit a nearby military camp.

Gunmen then burst into the establishment looking for firing positions.

In Afghanistan, no less than 192 schools were attacked and more than 1,000 were closed last year for security reasons, according to Unicef. About 500,000 children were thus "denied their right to education," the UN agency deplores.

"It was a scary day," Madina recalls, scars on her arms and legs caused by shards of glass.

"I still have nightmares, I can not concentrate, it was very difficult to prepare for exams," blows the teenager, two weeks after the attack, at the exit of a test of mathematics. Many classrooms are now unusable.

US and Taliban say they are making progress in ongoing peace talks. But little has changed for Afghan civilians.

According to the UN, 1,366 civilians were killed and 2,446 wounded in the first half. Nearly a third of the victims are children (327 dead and 880 injured).

A few days after the attack in Kabul, a Taliban car bomb targeted the intelligence services of the eastern city of Ghazni. The blast also hit a nearby school, injuring dozens of children.

In the school of Madina, out of about 120 students in the school, about 20% are still missing, according to the director of the school Niamatullah Hamdard. "They are afraid to come back."

- Haunted -

In the district of Deh Bala in Nangarhar province (east), Papen school found itself in the midst of fighting between government forces and the Islamic State (IS) branch of Afghanistan.

She is now in ruins. The children, some of whom have seen IS fighters behead villagers, are now following the courses sitting on a carpet in the middle of the debris.

"When students fall asleep at night, they dream of Daesh (the Arabic acronym for IS) and are haunted by these atrocities," says director, Muhamad Wali. "When they come here, they are extremely stressed."

Students "can no longer concentrate on their studies" and have erratic behavior, observes Omar Ghorzang, a school district official.

Traumatized children no longer have "the opportunity to learn, develop their skills, improve their productivity and contribute to economic growth," says Unicef.

Amir Gul, aged about 15, confirms that he and his classmates live in extreme anxiety.

"We are always afraid that a bomb will explode, everyone is afraid and nobody can study," he says.

Psychotherapist Bethan McEvoy, educational advisor for the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), points out that "when you have a very stressful event, there is a natural reaction in your body that turns into a survival reaction."

But "when people are in a state of constant fear, it's hard to turn off that reaction," she notes.

In addition to insurgent attacks, death also comes from US forces - which killed 76 civilians in 2018, including 31 children, according to a recent report by the Pentagon - and mines to which children are particularly exposed.

According to the United Nations Assistance Mission, 84 per cent of fatal injuries to children are caused by mines and unexploded ordnance.

The Ministry of Health has set up listening units in Kabul schools that have been hit by violence. One of them went to the school in Madina. "It was useful but too short," says the teenager.

On the other hand, no psychological help was given to the pupils of the Papen school as the zone is dangerous, regrets Muhamad Wali, the director of the school of Nangarhar.

© 2019 AFP