Every day, students from Assam’s Sila Mari village and its surrounding areas must make the perilous journey to school by fording a stream in a makeshift boat. Images taken at the location show students loading their bicycles onto a rowboat so they can cross the stream. The local villagers have previously requested a bridge over the stream from the district authority on numerous occasions, but to no avail.
“We have been forced to cross the stream with a makeshift boat to reach our school. We are so scared to cross the stream, but we have no option,” a girl student of MRA High School of Niz Baghmari said.
Md. Juwar Ahmed, another student of the school said that there used to be a bamboo bridge across the stream but it got washed away in the floods.