Carrying blue schoolbags on their backs, hundreds of schoolchildren whiz down small sand dunes, eager to get back to class.

But these boys and girls are survivors of suffering and trauma that few children their age could father.

Her new school is in the city of Ouallam in south-west Niger, a region that has been hit by attacks by groups linked to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group for the past five years.

The students are from 18 villages near Mali, whose residents fled to the relatively safe Ouallam in 2021 after jihadist killings that also forced schools to close.

According to UNICEF, 817 schools with 72,421 students – including 34,464 girls – have been closed in Niger, especially in Tillaberi, the border region where Ouallam is located.

In Ouallam alone, around a hundred schools had to close their doors.

Chronic insecurity has prompted authorities to set up special education centers where displaced children can resume their schooling, Mahamadou Illo Abarchi, an education official in Ouallam, told AFP.

Some 17,000 students have already reentered the school system and another 55,300 will follow suit, enrolling in about 20 centers for displaced children in south-west Niger, the government says.

In Ouallam, nearly 1,600 schoolchildren – some of whom have not attended school for three years – are registered in three centers set up near a site for displaced people.

The sites offer free canteens, a vital resource for families escaping violence in a country that is the poorest in the world according to the UN Human Development Index.

Classes take place in shelters or classrooms equipped with tables and benches provided by NGOs. But in others, students have to study on the floor.

Fatima and Aissa, two young girls from Ngaba, a settlement near Mali, expressed their joy at returning to school while clutching their slates.

But the euphoria of going back to school can’t erase the painful memories.

“My uncle was a village chief, he was killed by the bandits before our eyes,” said Mariama, who also lived in Ngaba. “It was a lot of blood.”

Nassirou, Malick, Hasane, Abdou and their parents fled their village of Adabdab on foot after a series of jihadist attacks, the last of which on October 22 killed 11 civilians.

“It was the bandits who chased us away, they killed a lot of men,” Nassirou said quietly in the playground.

Moussa, who hails from a hamlet in the same area, said: “I’m no longer afraid, I no longer hide when I hear the sound of motorbikes,” often used by jihadists to attack villages.

When they first arrived at the new centers, many children “showed signs of stress and trauma, others were very aggressive,” education official Morou Chaibou said.

He spoke of some students recounting harrowing memories – including their parents being shot.

Adamou Dari, the centers’ regional director, said they also offered the children psychological and social support to give them some stability after their traumatic experience.

“Now they are concentrating in class and the results are encouraging,” said one teacher as she played with some of her students in the yard.

Absenteeism is low but a concern, Dari said, explaining that some students are skipping school to work in the city and support their families.

Harlem Desir of the International Rescue Committee, who recently visited the Ouallam displaced persons site, said impoverished families often leave their children to work at a young age or marry their daughters.

Chaibou warned that neglected children could become prime recruitment targets for the very jihadist groups whose devastation has left their families in such trouble.

In 2021, Amnesty International warned that boys between the ages of 15 and 17 were filling the ranks of armed groups, particularly the al-Qaeda-affiliated GSIM, in the Torodi region of near Burkina Faso – with the blessing of their parents.