The school year has already started in Yemen, but Midian Aoud skips classes to wash cars and help his family struggle to survive war-aggravated misery.
The 12-year-old lives in Taez, a city besieged in the conflict between Iranian-backed Houthi rebels and government forces backed by a Saudi-led military coalition.
“My friends study and I don’t. They are in seventh grade. I left school to help my parents,” Midian, dressed in a torn T-shirt, told AFP.
After washing cars, Midian helps his father, Adnan Aoud, a shoemaker who says his decision not to send his son to school was difficult but unavoidable because they need the income to feed the family.
“To study you need books, notebooks and pencils. I wanted to give my children everything to go to school but I couldn’t,” Adnan lamented. “We are in total misery.”
The father said that he himself was unable to study, in a country that was already one of the poorest in the Middle East before the war.
illiterate
“My children and I are illiterate. I wanted my son to do better than me, but he will also be a shoemaker,” Adnan lamented. “This is not life”.
Yemen’s economy was in crisis before the start of the conflict in 2014, when the Houthis seized the capital Sanaa.
Since 2015, when the Saudi coalition intervened, the war has left hundreds of thousands dead, according to the UN.
The conflict caused displacement, the spread of disease and the collapse of infrastructure, with the country on the brink of famine.
A UN-brokered truce went into effect on April 2, giving the country some much-needed respite from the violence.
The UN children’s agency, UNICEF, said the Arabian Peninsula country faces a “severe education crisis.”
“Conflict and frequent school disruptions … have a profound impact on learning and intellectual and emotional development,” UNICEF told AFP.
The war and the educational crisis were damaging the mental health of 10.6 million children, according to the agency.
The problem is compounded by displacement, security risks, a lack of teachers, and deteriorating infrastructure.
danger abound
In Taez, schools reopened this month with more than 500,000 students despite the danger of living in a city controlled by the government but surrounded by rebels, despite the truce.
There are earthen barriers erected in some areas to shield children from gunfire on their way to school.
Ishraq Yahia, a teacher at an all-girls school, called the truce “a huge failure” as the city remains under siege and there is sporadic sniper fire.
“There are students shot on the way to school. Some even inside the school bus,” Yahia told AFP.
Taez is one of the cities hardest hit by the war in Yemen.
And despite the dialogue sponsored by the UN, there has been no progress in opening roads to the city.
The siege has complicated the delivery of humanitarian aid and made transportation more expensive because goods must be transported over longer routes, leaving many without essential services.
Malak Faisal says goodbye to his mothers every day in case he doesn’t come back alive.
“We are in danger every day we go to school. Houthi missiles and snipers spare no one.”
