REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, ABUZAR CAMP -- Abuobeida Ali was a toddler when militiamen stormed his village in Sudan's Darfur in 2003, murdering his father and driving his family out, ending his hopes for a normal childhood and education.

Now aged 17 and out of school for nine years, he is one of the more than 870,000 Darfuri children living in camps for the displaced who struggle to balance their studies with the need to survive.

"When we came here, I left school after four years to help my mother support my sisters who are studying," Ali said, sitting in the yard behind the hut he shares with his family in the Abuzar camp near West Darfur state capital Geneina.

Since leaving school, he has worked in a restaurant at the small marketplace set up in the winding, dusty alleys of the camp.