Millions of Yemeni Children Deprived of Education

The new school year began in Yemen, under difficult and harsh conditions, because of the suspension of salaries of employees in the government sector, including teachers for nearly two years, following the decision to transfer the central bank from the capital Sana’a to Aden.

Yemen is going through a crisis that is the worst and most complex in its contemporary history. Since the aggression on Yemen on March 26, 2015, led by Saudi Arabia, the state institutions and various sectors have been severely damaged, some of them have been out of service and others have suffered from fragmentation, loss of balance and the loss of salaries for all state employees, including the educational sector.

In the education sector, the current war has left an educational crisis, the worst in Yemen’s contemporary history and one of the biggest educational crises in the Middle East after Syria.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said in a report earlier this year that “more than 2,500 schools do not work in Yemen, two-thirds of them have been destroyed by the aggression, 27 percent have been closed, 7 percent used for military purposes or as a shelter for displaced persons.

The 11 million children in Yemen need assistance for food, treatment, education and water, UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore said in a press report after a four-day visit to the provinces of Aden and Sana’a in July.

A child dies every 10 minutes and the conflict is raging in this country, which is already on the brink of abyss, she added.

Oxfam says 1,600 schools are out of service as they have become rubble, or at best shelters for displaced people. The number of children who do not attend school is estimated at 2 million, while 4.5 million students are having problems attending their schools.