TYRE (Lebanon): Jamming into schools that escaped the summer war with Israel, students across southern Lebanon have started a difficult year, trying to overcome traumas and learning a life-or-death lesson -- how to avoid being blasted by unexploded ordnance.

In a private school in the village of Hanaway, east of the coastal city of Tyre, several hundred students, aged between five and 11, attend a one-hour session about the dangers of cluster bombs.

Israel dropped over 1.2 million bomblets on Lebanon during its July-August war with the militants of Hezbollah, according to the Israeli daily Haaretz.

Since the Aug 14 end to the campaign, 23 people have been killed and another 136 injured in Lebanon after stepping on or handling unexploded components of cluster bombs, according to an AFP count. The students are taught about the dangers of unexploded ordnance through cartoons, photographs of various types of bombs and question-and-answer sessions with the teachers.

“The first message that we relay to them is not to approach the area and to inform their parents, if they ever see cluster bombs,” said Rana Alijami, a teacher from the Italian non-governmental organisation Intersos which is participating in the programme organised by the UN children's fund (Unicef).

The students applaud. The message seems to have been well received.

“We should not approach the bombs, we should not go to remote places,” said seven-year-old Rayan. But teachers say parents and society in general also have a key role to play.

“Teaching the parents is also very essential,” said Unicef spokeswoman Nicole Ireland.

“Whatever you tell the children, if their parents tell them for example that they could touch the cluster bombs, they will listen to them, and all our efforts would have been in vain,” she said.—AFP