Children in Crisis
It is human nature, I suppose, that one woman’s baby moves us more than a whole nation’s torment. The birth of a royal baby seems to take over the world news and the cancellation of Jeremy Kyle is the most notable news story of the last month. Saudi Arabia is still being celebrated for basic gender equality. The country’s recent law abolishing the ban on women driving was passed June 24th 2018 put Saudi Arabia across world news last year in a way that the war in Yemen which has killed thousands of civilians and pushed millions to the brink of starvation never could.
Yemen are facing the world’s worst man-made humanitarian disaster in history, fought with our weapons and economic support, with the recent UN reporting that at least 7025 civilians have been killed and 11140 injured in the civil war since March 2015 with Saudi-led air strikes to blame for 65% of these deaths. Other reports believe the death toll is as high 67650 people have been killed since January 2016. Thousands more civilians have died from other causes, such as malnutrition, disease and poor health.
In short, Yemen is in crisis and it isn’t being reported. People are dying and it isn’t being reported. Few articles are written about it, one from the BBC only reports it to ask the final question ‘why should this matter for the rest of the world?’ - but why should it not?
The civil war is rarely reported and the mass killing of 44 school boys last year is never talked about. On 9th August last year a Saudi-led coalition air strike on a school bus killed 55 people in all, and civilians described the horrific sight of the bloodied bodies of schoolboys - still in their uniforms.
However, in the midst of exam season it is easy to forget that an education system like the UK’s - though sometimes problematic and definitely imperfect - is a luxury.
Whilst students across the country are stressing in libraries and hoping to pass, this school lost 44 young students in an airstrike and many many more to starvation and disease, and children in Mali and Nigeria are fighting to go to school.
In 2017 the UNESCO Institute for Statistics found that only 69% of Mali children age 7-12 enrolled in primary school, and 36% of secondary school aged students enrolled into secondary school - despite the country having compulsory primary education.
The majority of Mali and Nigeria’s children are living in extreme poverty with little money to buy school supplies, uniforms and transport. The majority of schools that do exist in Mali are destroyed and torn apart in acts of war and terror. The majority of these children want to go to to school.
Instead, they’re used as human sacrifices for terrorist group Boka Haram. Suicide bombers. ‘Child bombs’. 83 Nigerian children were killed in this way in 6 months in 2017. 55 girls. 27 boys. 1 baby. Or, they’re bombed on a school trip, or trained to be child soldiers.
Boko Haram are still destroying the education and lives of innocent African people. Last month they killed 11 sleeping civilians in one night. Boko Haram are still here but those children aren’t. The Yemeni civil war is still happening, and children are still dying.
These children aren’t weapons; their words are. Let them use them. Educate them. Let them live.
Ways to help:
