Students in northeast Syria are currently learning online — a challenge for the Kurdish-led autonomous region where electricity and internet are weak and war continues. Yet the novel coronavirus is not the only reason local authorities chose to move classes to the internet.

Shirin Hemo, an education administrator in the Kurdish-led autonomous administration of north and east Syria, said the pandemic was only the latest calamity to result in school closures in the region.

“When Turkey attacked, schools closed, and before some regions were occupied by Daesh,” Hemo told Al-Monitor, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State. “Then with the coronavirus, we had to have an alternative.”

In October, feeling threatened by enemy Kurdish groups near its territory, Turkey attacked positions of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) along its border and clashes between the SDF and Turkey’s Syrian rebel allies continue. In addition to these attacks, Turkey — which considers the SDF an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party — continues to cut off access to water in the region intermittently.