4.5 Million Yemeni Children Out of School: Aid Group Sounds Alarm
- March 26, 2024
- 655
Nearly 4.5 million children in Yemen are not attending school, according to a nonprofit organization named Save the Children, nearly ten years after the country's bloody war began.
The number highlights how unstable daily life is in the poorest nation on the Arabian Peninsula, despite a relative calm following a truce in April 2022.
According to a survey by the group, 4.5 million children, or two out of every five, are not attending school. Displaced children are twice as likely to drop out of school as their classmates.
Despite the UN-brokered truce, at least one child in one-third of Yemeni families polled had dropped out of school in the previous two years, the report stated.
After Iran-backed Huthi rebels took control of Yemen's capital, Sanaa, in September 2014, Saudi Arabia led a coalition to support the internationally recognised government a few months later, sparking the start of the country's conflict.
According to the organisation, the conflict has caused economic instability, pushing nearly 4.5 million people from their homes and pushing two-thirds of Yemen's 33 million citizens below the poverty line.
According to Save the Children, "displaced children are twice as vulnerable to school dropouts."
"Nine years into this forgotten conflict, we are facing an unprecedented education emergency," stated Mohammed Manna, the acting country director for Save the Children in Yemen.
According to the survey, 14% of the families the assistance organisation spoke with claimed that their children's dropout was due to insecurity.
However, a greater majority—roughly 44%—cited financial justifications, including the necessity of sustaining family incomes. Twenty percent or so indicated they couldn't pay the normal costs of education.