By Reem Ahmed
They say children are the future. They must be protected, loved and well-taken cared. They must grow up in a healthy environment so they can flourish when they grow up and build the awaiting future.
What if children do not have those healthy opportunities in life? What if children are raised in wartime? What does it look like living such a cruel life?Â
The effects of war include generally long-term physical and psychological harm to grown adults, much less children. Yemen war is in its sixth year now, and many children have died, injured, or left with no basic needs like food, education and medical care.
Health officials warned in 2019 that up to six million children could be at risk of malnutrition in the event of war. Meanwhile, the United Nations has warned that millions of children in Yemen are at risk of starvation amid the coronavirus pandemic, which is pushing the war-torn country to further devastation as what is happening now.
Whereas, international organisations, including the United Nations (UN), United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF), and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), have cautioned of the high rates of acute malnutrition among children under the age of five in Yemen, reaching record levels, in conjunction with the lack of funding and the repercussions of COVID-19 pandemic.
The British newspaper œThe Independent has published a special report on hunger in Yemen, in which it stated that 2020 will be the worst year of hunger in the country due to the civil war and raids of the Saudi-Emirati coalition, the Corona pandemic, floods and a wave of desert locusts.
Moreover, the report said that the United Nations fears that an estimated 2.4 million children in Yemen will be pushed to the brink of famine by the end of the year, due to conflict and an unprecedented shortage of humanitarian aid during the pandemic.
According to the UN, the victims are young children afflicted with “severe acute malnutrition”, with an increase of 15.5% during the current year in parts of the country, with more than half a million cases recorded in the southern districts, where 1.4 million children under the age of five live.
At least 98,000 children under the age of five in separate areas are at risk of death if they do not receive urgent treatment, the UN reported.
Yemen war has also caused endless reduction in material and human capital. Children lack safety and stable educational sources and institutions, they either continue studying in semi-rubble school buildings under the threat of any kind of bursts at any time, or not having the opportunity to endure their study at first place.
œAn entire generation of children in Yemen faces a bleak future because of limited or no access to education, said Meritxell Relaño, UNICEF Representative in Yemen. œEven those who remain in school are not getting the quality education they need.
According to œIf Not In School, more than 2,500 schools are out of use, with two thirds damaged by attacks, 27 per cent closed and 7 per cent used for military purposes or as shelters for displaced people.
This lack of access to education has forced many children into child marriage, child labour, child trafficking or recruitment of child soldiers.
The recruiting of the rebel children under the age of 18 has exacerbated the disaster of the war in Yemen, and the child soldiers who are being driven to the battle fronts have become the most dangerous tragedy that threatens the country’s future, at a time when the families of middle and high school students fear that their children will fall into these death networks.
Children involvement in the labor market as a result of conflict and high poverty rates rose during recent period due to the expansion of poverty, migration, stopping salaries, and many families losing their providers.
Wherever you turn your face in Yemen, you will find child labor in front of you spread everywhere, in the streets, tours, workshops, factories, and places that no mind can imagine.
Children in Yemen are greying during the war, children who were born with the war and died by it.
Frightening facts and separation from the values ‹‹and norms of humanity, all with terrifying frequency, why all this? And for whom? To what time or place do all these crimes belong? Is it not sufficient enough for children to live the war with all its suffering and memories, but yet killing and targeting them as well?
The bombs, gunpowder and rockets are violating all their dreams from their heads that they have always dreamed of, about a future and a long journey, dying to the beat of the drums of war as if they were the cause of it. How will this war that fight soft, feeble bodies end? And how will these missiles saturate from devouring the youngest?
I tried through what I wrote here, knowing that the words cannot fulfil the purpose that I want the reader and the observer to stand on, but I will strive hard to draw the scene that I have been through and have seen it with my eyes as a Yemeni citizen and a journalist-to-be.***
(This article is written as part of individual assignment series for Feature Writing class)