Displaced children wait in a Red Cross center in San Pedro

ABIDJAN, January 21 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – Nearly half a million of schoolchildren in Ivory Coast risk losing a full academic year due to a rebel war raging in the west African country since September.

A military uprising, which rapidly transformed into a full-scale war, has not only split the country geographically but also led to the closure of schools in areas controlled by the northern military opposition, the Patriotic Movement of Ivory Coast (MPCI), and displaced large chunks of the population, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

In the government controlled part of the country, the authorities have announced a new academic session, which began Sunday to cater for some 60,000 pupils displaced by the war or whose studies were affected by the crisis.

The exercise will cost the government 3.5 billion CFA francs (5.3 million euros). Normally, the school year in Ivory Coast starts in September.

Recently, Education Minister Michel Amani N'Guessan has said Ivory Coast's international donors had invested 82 million CFA francs since the start of the crisis to accommodate displaced schoolchildren.

He said the government currently aimed to enroll 80 percent of the pupils whose studies had been interrupted by the crisis, acknowledging that a "100 percent target would be unrealistic."

The northern - Muslim-dominated - half of Ivory Coast has been held by the main rebel group since September 19 and schools there have simply closed down. Two other rebel movements hold large swathes of the country's west.

According to Carolyn McAskie, a special envoy of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan for the Ivorian crisis, more than a million people could have been displaced by the fighting.

The Ivorian government has set up temporary schools in government-controlled areas to replace those that have shut down and is trying to mobilize teachers.

The MPCI, the main rebel group, recently slammed what it called "official intimidation" for the lack of teachers and nurses in the "so-called war zones."

The education ministry, meanwhile, estimates that some 550,000 children in rebel-occupied territory risk losing a full school year.

An official from Ivory Coast's main student union said its members held a meeting in the northern rebel-held town of Katiola Monday to discuss the situation.

He said they had taken a decision to urge the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to help reopen schools in the area.

"We want UNESCO to give us the opportunity to go to school like our counterparts in government-held zones and intervene with both parties in the conflict to see that this happens," a representative told AFP on the telephone.

However, the regime of President Laurent Gbagbo, whom the rebels say they are bent on ousting, does not seem very enthusiastic about the idea.

Recently, the education minister carped that UNICEF and UNESCO were trying to reopen schools in rebel territory with "teachers being paid by the government of Ivory Coast," according to the Fraternite-Matin newspaper.

Education Minister N'Guessan said this would not help "create conditions to end the war because people in those areas will no longer feel the conflict," the daily reported.