Three Years of War on Yemen, Reveal the Status of the Yemeni Children :Report
By: Shefa’a Abdullah
Three years after the brutal attack against Yemen, it witnessed many images, scenes of tragic stories that tell the horror of Yemen and childhood in particular.
The children were no longer safe since the US-Saudi warplanes flew and started bombing everything, even the schools and kindergartens, which were not fired from their bombardment.
The embryos also in their mothers’ stomachs have been harmed by this unjust war, some of them died before they were born, and some of them were born blind, disabled or suffering from a disease caused by the poison of rockets and bombs by the death machine Saudi Arabia.
What happened to the crimes against childhood and humanity is like a tragic play of Shakespeare, whose viewers feel after the pages fold that all of its followers have realized who is the oppressor and the oppressed, but today we see the opposite completely, the organizations of childhood and before it the Security Council and the United Nations and human rights go blind infront of the crimes of the coalition against the Yemeni people.
In order to make the picture clearer, we bring to you the tip of the iceberg of the past three years against the children of Yemen:
According to local and international statistics on the crimes of the Saudi alliance and their mercenary in three years, more than 3078 children were killed and about 2,886 others were injured by coalition’s air strikes and shelling.
In other words, seven children are killed and wounded every day by shelling, and some 35,988 children are panicked and terrified daily by shelling.
Buthaina “eye of humanity”:
Buthaina al-Meiri, the 5-year-old daughter, who killed all members of her family as a result of raids carried out by the coalition on Yemen on August 25 last year is the best witness to the ugliness of the Saudi massacres, despite dozens of other evidence that tells more and deeper.
Buthina has a story that has been able to reach various countries in the world to denounce the international and humanitarian failure of the United Nations against dozens of war crimes and genocide committed against Yemen’s children and documented by international and UN organizations.
Healthcare:
The health statistics on the situation of childhood in Yemen revealed that six children die every hour due to various diseases,the aggression caused the death of 247 thousand children and the injury of 2 million and 400 thousand children to malnutrition,while a million children suffer from severe malnutrition, with a child dying every 10 minutes for preventable causes.
In addition to those who died of fear and panic, where 3% of the births of 2015 to 2018 were registered with congenital malformations in fetuses and births, and recorded 450 abortions.
According to reports and statistics, 3 million children in Yemen are exposed to measles and 2.9 are exposed to diarrhea.
Famine also threatens the lives of about 5 million Yemeni children.
The number of displaced children with their families reached one million displaced children out of a total of 3 million displaced because of war.
12.8 million children need urgent humanitarian assistance, and 8 million children need protection and psychological support services.
About 7.5 million children need general health care
The figures are growing from day to day in the shadow of the shameful silence of the child and human rights organizations, which became apparent following the Saudi aggression, especially after the United Nations put Saudi Arabia on the list of shame on the killing of children and then removed from the list because of international pressure.
Denial of the right to education:
The student Ishraq was killed in a raid by the coalition targeting the school where she was learning, in Nehm area east of Sana’a ,the capital of Yemen,
on the education side, the US-Saudi coalition deprived 3.8 million children from going to school because of the bombing, forcing 1.8 to leave education, and 360,000 children lost their educational opportunities due to aggression.
According to the organizations’ reports, some 2.4 million children need help to get education out of 5.8 million school-age children
In addition, 216 schools have been turned into shelters for displaced people, while 3,750 schools have been closed in 2015.
The number of schools out of use due to the shelling and raids of the aggression reached (2641) schools, of which 293 were completely destroyed,as well as 2348 were partially damaged and partially destroyed due to the bombing of aggression.
What did organizations do:
With regard to the position of international organizations, which did not go beyond the framework of condemnations, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Yemen as the worst places on earth for children, and warned of an impending disaster if the aid did not reach more than 11 million children.
“It is estimated that one child dies every 10 minutes of preventable diseases,” said UNICEF Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa.
For her part, UN Secretary-General for Children in Conflict Regions, Virginia Gamba, called on the coalition to crack down on rules of engagement in Yemen, describing the number of children killed by coalition strikes as unacceptable.
Gamba said a large number of children and schools in Yemen had been shelled by the coalition, which has been waging a campaign since March 2015.
It also carried a report prepared by the International Labor Task Force to monitor the situation of children in conflict zones,the Saudi-led coalition carried the greatest responsibility for killing and maiming dozens of children in Yemen.
Neither the first nor the last time appears to be part of a series of “taking responsibility” for what is happening against Yemen’s children, without being heard.
Adds that the coalition has recently launched 30 raids a day, and this is in line with what the United Nations and human rights organizations from the facts, but most importantly, Saudi Arabia – and with them allies – did not change their approach.
Black list:
The Secretary-General of the United Nations,had included the name of the coalition on the black list of States and entities that violate the rights of children for its crimes in Yemen.
In his report to the Security Council, Guterich accused coalition forces of killing and maiming children and targeting schools and hospitals in Yemen.
The report recorded 33 attacks on schools in Yemen and 19 attacks on 16 health facilities, most of which are borne by coalition forces.
The British-based charity Save the Children said the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen must be included in the list of countries and parties that violate the fundamental rights of children because of the role of the coalition in the war in Yemen.
“Save the Children” in a report prepared in cooperation with the Children and Armed Conflict Watch List entitled “Attacks on Health Facilities and Their Impact on Children: An Accelerated Degradation” that the Saudi-led coalition has caused the death of a number of infants due to oxygen cuts from incubators In the children’s hospital in the capital Sana’a after an air raid launched by the coalition.
It is clear through the continuation of the aggression and the silence of the international community that the future of childhood in Yemen is at an impasse in light of the continuation of Saudi barbaric aggression and the international silence applicable to all the humanitarian violations that Yemen is facing in general and if this is not immediately remedied, the crisis will worsen more and then will not stop The crisis at its geographical borders, but will be reflected negatively on the regional situation as well.