Four in five children in Yemen – 12.3 million – are desperately in need of aid.
Tens of thousands of children have died.
Over 1.7 million children were forced to flee and live in camps due to the conflict.
The nation’s health services are on the verge of collapse.
The economy of Yemen has been ravaged.
These are the consequences of the status quo which foster Yemen today! Six years after the conflict in Yemen began the country is going through the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. An immense number of children die as a direct result of the conflict and from indirect causes like disease and famine and due to the emergence of food and cholera crises. Besides this, the arrival of the pandemic of COVID-19 created the intensification of the already emergency leading to a humanitarian crisis far worse than what we could ever imagine.
Health crisis. Only half of the health facilities are operational in Yemen six years after the start of the conflict and the active ones struggle with severe shortages in medicine, equipment, and staff. According to official reports from UNICEF, 10.2 million children do not have access to basic healthcare. Because of this, tens of thousands of children a year die from preventable diseases that have re-emerged in great numbers.
Additionally, as the country goes through the world’s worst food crisis, famine increases: in 2019 15.9 million people were in urgent need of food and two million children under 5 years old were malnourished, which includes 325,000 who suffered from life-threatening severe acute malnutrition.
The COVID-19 pandemic came to highlight the fragilities of Yemen’s health care system, which was highly overwhelmed due to the above-mentioned lack of facilities, staff, and equipment. Moreover, Yemen falls below the minimum hospital beds per 10,000 required by the World Health Organisation of ten beds per 10,000 people with fewer than five beds per 10,000 people.
Conflict. UNICEF estimates that more than 4.3 million children are in direct danger of death, injury or being forced to fight in the conflict. Since 2015 the United Nations have counted 3153 children that have been killed and the other 5660 that have been injured. According to UNICEF, this means that an average of 50 children die every passing month and over 90 more are wounded. However, the number of children with lasting psychological damage far exceeds these numbers which are believed to be higher since these results are only the ones verified by the UN.
Another result of the conflict is the attacks on schools that disable their use: 219 schools have been attacked since the beginning of the conflict as well as 142 hospitals. This situation has led to boys and girls being targets of sexual violence: the UN counts 16 cases of rape since 2015 but again the numbers are expected to be higher. Another pressing issue is the fact that children are being forced and recruited to fight in the conflict: the UN counts 3467 children since 2015. Many times, these children are coerced into recruitment in exchange for cash payments that would help to feed their families.
Unfortunately, with the emergence of the pandemic of COVID-19, the UN expects that children might face a greater chance of being forced into the fighting since economic hardship is foreseeable and schools are now closed!
Although there are restrictions in commerce due to the pandemic, it is clear that now more than ever these children require emergency help and UNICEF accepts and incentivises humanitarian access directed to Yemen. From the part of UNICEF Student Team Maastricht, we recommend donating to the official website of UNICEF, since it is a reliable source: https://help.unicef.org/children-yemen-in-emergency
Sources:
UNICEF Yemen, ‘COVID-19 2020 Response Plan’, UNICEF Yemen, Sana’a, April 2020, p. 1
Ministry of Planning, ‘Yemen Socio-Economic Update, Issue (47) April, 2020’, MoP, Sana’a, August 2019, p.6.
Ministry of Planning, ‘Yemen Socio-Economic Update, Issue (47) April, 2020’, p.5.
UNICEF Yemen, ‘Yemen 2019 End of Year Situation Situation Report’, UNICEF, Sana’a, December 2019, p. 5
Child Protection Cluster Yemen, ‘Child Protection Covid-19 Guidance – Yemen’, Child Protection Cluster, Sana’a, April 2020, p.2.
United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Middle East and North Africa Regional Office in collaboration with the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW), ‘Child Marriage in the Middle East and North Africa – Yemen Country Brief’, UNICEF and ICRW, Amman, 2017, p. 8.
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), 2018 Yemen Humanitarian Needs Overview (HNO), OCHA, Sana’a, December 2017, p.50
United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Middle East and North Africa Regional Office in collaboration with the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW), ‘Child Marriage in the Middle East and North Africa’, UNICEF and ICRW, Amman, 2017, p. 37.
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