8.1m Yemen children need ‘emergency’ educational aid, UNICEF says

Displaced Yemeni boys attend a class at a makeshift school run by volunteers, in the war-ravaged western province of Hodeida, on 14 March 2021. [KHALED ZIAD/AFP via Getty Images]

Some 8.1 million children in Yemen need emergency educational assistance due to the conflict in the country, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said yesterday.

UNICEF explained on Twitter that this is a huge increase compared to the 1.1 million children who needed educational aid before the war.

“The war must stop so that children can live their childhood,” it added.

The UN agency’s tweet comes ahead of the new academic year scheduled to start on 15 August.

In early July, UNICEF said in a report that “more than two million children of school age are currently out of school in Yemen”.

At the time, the report noted that “two-thirds of the teaching staff – more than 170,000 teachers – have not received their salary on a regular basis for 4 years, while more than 3,600 children have been recruited [as child soldiers] since the start of the war.”

According to the United Nations estimates, the war in Yemen has claimed the lives of more than 233,000 people and left 80 per cent of the population – about 30 million people – dependent on aid to survive.

World Bank: 70% of Yemenis are at risk of starvation

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