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SANAA, November 20 (Xinhua) – As the world celebrates World Children’s Day on Friday, Yemeni children are suffering from hunger, poverty and disease from the COVID-19 pandemic in the war-torn country.
“We have been warning for several months that Yemen was heading towards a cliff,” said Jens Laerke, spokesman for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
“We are now seeing the first people fall off that cliff,” Laerke said, referring to the younger generation of the war-inflicted Arab country.
During what the United Nations says is the biggest humanitarian crisis in the world, children in Yemen are the most vulnerable.
MALNUTRITION
When Mohammed Hassan was transferred to the Al-Sabeen hospital in Sanaa, held by the rebels, the 15-year-old boy weighed only 14 kilograms.
He has suffered from acute malnutrition for years because his family has never been able to get enough food on the table since the start of the war.
“My children and I are hungry … our daily meal is dry bread and sometimes we don’t take it. The war and the blockade have devastated our lives. Now we live in a dogma with very little food”, lamented the father of Hassan.
Hassan’s family was one of thousands of Yemeni families who cannot get a meal a day or rent a house as food prices rise and the value of the country’s currency is falling due to the civil war.
According to the World Food Program, about a third of Yemeni households have dietary deficiencies and rarely consume foods such as legumes, vegetables, fruits, dairy products or meat.
The rate of malnutrition among Yemeni children has risen to the highest level on record.
The United Nations has estimated that 7.4 million people in Yemen are in need of nutritional assistance and 2 million of them are children under the age of five.
In some parts of Yemen, as many as 20% of children under five are severely malnourished.
Collapsing health care system
With nearly half of the health facilities in Yemen closed, the other half are now barely functional as their operation is almost completely dependent on international aid.
Humanitarian aid is rapidly running out. According to the United Nations, 15 of its 41 major programs in Yemen have been curtailed or closed due to lack of funds and the humanitarian response plan for Yemen is only 38% funded.
The rising rate of malnutrition and a shattered health system are a catastrophic combination. Yemen is becoming a living hell for the country’s children.
Many families face a cruel and painful choice: to use the little money they have to treat sick children or to buy food and save the life of the whole family.
With limited access to sanitation and clean water, children here have easily fallen prey to deadly epidemics, including cholera, malaria, dengue fever and the novel coronavirus.
Although Yemen has only reported about 2,000 cases of COVID-19, it has a death rate of 25 to 30 percent, one of the highest in the world. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has warned that the COVID-19 pandemic in Yemen is “an emergency within an emergency”.
EDUCATION
The United Nations said the war in Yemen damaged or destroyed more than 2,500 schools and forced 2 million children out of school.
Many students have not been able to return to their schools for more than five years. Those lucky enough to return often have to study in thatched huts or even under trees because the war destroyed most of the school buildings.
But what’s worse than the shortage of classrooms and textbooks is the lack of teachers. Many teachers were displaced during the war, and those who remained were not paid for years.
A recent UN statement pointed out that thousands of Yemeni teachers have not received salaries since the outbreak of the war. Many of the teachers sought other works to survive.
“Children who do not go to school face greater risks from all forms of exploitation, including those forced to participate in fighting, child labor and early marriage,” the United Nations Children’s Fund warned.
CHILD LABOR
The war and blockade have caused the country’s economy and local currency to collapse, forcing millions of children into forced labor to help their families survive.
Adel Rabie, 13, is expected to be in school. Instead, he works in a market in Hajjah province in northern Yemen, trying to make a living.
Adel says she tries to earn about two US dollars a day to buy food for her mother and little sisters who live in a tent in a family camp, displaced by war from northern border villages. Adel’s father died early in the war.
Work is a daily reality for around 23% of children between 5 and 14 in Yemen. They are vulnerable to exploitation, sexual abuse and forced recruitment into war.
The United Nations has even documented thousands of child soldiers in the country, most with the Houthi militia but also with the Yemeni government and other armed groups.
Despite all the disasters, the resilience and fortitude of the Yemenis also provide some hope. We see parents helping schools build classrooms, doctors offering free care for poor families, charitable bakeries giving out free bread, and so on.
But if the international community does not act quickly, these hopes will also vanish. It is up to the world now whether to rekindle those hopes or watch Yemen’s entire younger generation slip into abysmal despair. Enditem
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