Children streamed back to school across Pakistan on Monday in an anxious start to a new term following last month’s massacre of 134 students at an army-run school in the volatile northwestern city of Peshawar.
Helicopters flew overhead as dozens of army soldiers patrolled the streets around the Peshawar’s Army Public School, (APS), tightly screening entry and exit points to the school, early on Monday morning.
Most schools across the country of 180 million had been shut until Monday for an extended winter break in the aftermath of the December 16 attack when Taliban militants broke into Army Public School and methodically killed the children.
The Taliban said the attack – the group’s deadliest in Pakistan – was in response to a government offensive in North Waziristan and the nearby Khyber area that began in June 2014.
The mood among the students was sombre, but defiant, as they entered the premises. Many of the children were brought to the school in army trucks, which doubled up as school buses on the first day of school in the new year.
A ceremony was held to remember the victims of the Taliban attack.
In an emotionally charged and nervous atmosphere, parents, some crying, met army chief Gen Raheel Sharif who had traveled to Peshawar to address them in a private meeting.
“The army chief didn’t make a speech but individually met the parents and assured them they would eliminate the terrorists from the country,” a security official told Reuters.
Another official said eight-feet high walls were being built around public schools in Peshawar as part of enhanced security, with hundreds of residents volunteering to protect schools.
The reopening of the APS and other schools across Pakistan has been delayed several times, as authorities race to verify that adequate security arrangements are in place.
In Peshawar, 118 schools reopened on Monday, while a further 1,380 remained shut.
After today’s symbolic reopening of the school, classes are expected to resume from Tuesday.
Parts of the school have been repaired and repainted. But the main auditorium hall where most of the children were massacred remains closed.
But across the country, parents remain apprehensive about sending their children back to school.