Homeless children in Yemen struggle to eat and learn

More than half of children in Yemen show signs of stunted growth – a result of severe malnutrition according to the United Nations.Some 175,000 people have been driven from their homes in the middle eastern country by fighting between Yemeni troops and rebels in the northern Saada.The United Nations Children’s Fund, (UNICEF) is working to lower the threat of malnutrition many children uprooted by the ongoing fighting now face. Children and women count for most of those made homeless in the conflict because men tend to stay behind to protect their homes and to fight, the United Nations said.

On top of malnutrition, homeless Yemeni children also face potentially life-threatening health challenges, as well as lack of access to education. More nutrition experts are needed to help expand treatment and intervention efforts, said UNICEF director for the Middle East and North Africa Sigrid Kaag. Ms Kaag, just back from visiting Yemen’s camps for homeless families noted, as well, that education must be maintained alongside life-saving nutrition and health interventions. The organisation is working to create more school places for children living in t Yemen’s camps – and especially for girls.  At the moment, classrooms in the camps are very overcrowded .

One difficulty to educating children in Yemen’s camps is that local customs maintain that girl pupils should have female teachers. “It is very difficult to find female teachers who are willing to work in remote rural areas,” said Ms Kaag. Even so, makeshift classrooms at a camp will be the setting for the first formal schooling some of the uprooted children have ever known. “For children I spoke to, it was their first exposure to learning, being in a class setting, learning the alphabet,” said Ms. Kaag. “So it’s a significant opportunity.”

As well as providing water filters, jerrycans and hygiene kits for the homeless, aid agencies have set up feeding centres, child-friendly zones and temporary learning centres and are also aiming to expand extra curricular activities for children living in the camps.Many families are still remain trapped by pockets of fighting in northern Yemen. The crisis is worsened by chronic poverty and lack of basic infrastructure in areas sheltering the homeless, leaving tens of thousands vulnerable to hunger and disease.

About 175,000 people have been displaced in Yemen since the start of the crisis in 2004.Yemen is the poorest country in the Middle East; economic difficulties have sparked unrest.