Yemen’s displaced children dream of returning to school 

Taiz, Yemen – At sunrise, 12-year-old Ahmed wakes up under the roof of a tent in a displacement camp in the Wadi Bani Khawlan area of Taiz governorate’s Jabal Habashi district. He spends his days playing with other children or retreating to lie down inside the tent. This has been his routine for the past two weeks, ever since he had to flee his village of al-Ashroh, west of the city of Taiz.

Life in the camp is “boring”, he says. He misses everything about his home and his village, particularly his school bag and his walk to school every morning.

“I left my school bag in the house as we fled the clashes, and I do not know if I will carry it again and go back to my classroom and meet my teachers and classmates,” Ahmed told Al Jazeera.

There’s no school at the displacement camp for Ahmed to attend, and even if he were back home in his village, his school there is also closed. Across conflict-affected parts of Yemen, hundreds of schools have suspended classes, disrupting education for more than 137,000 students, according to UNICEF.

The United Nations body added that more than 57,000 children had been displaced as a result of the fighting in Yemen in the first two weeks of September, a number that will likely have increased as fighting continues.

After four years of relative calm, armed clashes between pro-government forces and the Houthis intensified sharply in August and September, dealing a new blow to Yemeni schools and students and further deepening the country’s education crisis.

Survival over education

After arriving at the displacement camp, Ahmed’s family had immediate priorities: securing shelter and meeting their basic needs.

“Before the war reached my house and school, my family would care if I completed my school homework,” Ahmed said. “Today, no one cares about education in the camp. Families’ focus shifted to tents, food and water.”

Meeting those needs is a difficult task for the humanitarian groups attempting to help the displaced. The UN said on October 2 that more than 150,000 people had been displaced by the renewed conflict, a number that is expected to rise. That is on top of the more than five million Yemenis who had previously been displaced as a result of the war, which began with the Houthi takeover of Sanaa in 2014.

Mohammed Radman, a displacement coordinator with the Executive Unit for IDP Camp Management in Jabal Habashi district, told Al Jazeera that thousands of students are displaced, and that many of them have been forced to put their education aside amid what he described as “horrific circumstances”.

“These students do not have options,” Radman said. “All schools near the front lines are closed. And even if these students wanted to travel several kilometres every day to reach functioning schools, those schools are already crowded. So, the displaced students cannot be accommodated.”

He divided schools in conflict-affected areas into three groups: schools being used to shelter the displaced, overcrowded schools and schools on or near the front lines.

“This creates a real challenge for society, the Yemeni government and international organisations,” he said.

‘Homelessness and begging await them’

Before the latest escalation, 3.2 million children were already out of school in Yemen, according to UNICEF.

And now, with the new and ongoing wave of displacement, the ordeal facing Yemeni children is set to worsen, said Tawfiq al-Humaidi, the president of SAM Organization for Rights and Liberties.

“This war leaves them vulnerable to homelessness, begging, and potentially forced recruitment,” al-Humaidi said. “So, alternatives available to children outside the classroom are not safe.”

While families hope that their stay in the displacement camps will be temporary, al-Humaidi said that the disruption to education caused by displacement may last for a long time.

He said that prolonged stays in displacement camps can pull children into a different daily routine and make their eventual return to school more difficult.

“The repercussions extend beyond deprivation and the loss of educational lessons to the loss of the social and psychological protection provided by schools,” al-Humaidi said. “When schools close, children become more vulnerable to violence, exploitation, recruitment and child labour.”

Finding a way back to school

Abdulkarim, a teacher in Taiz who did not wish to give his full name, told Al Jazeera that providing education in a “war zone” is challenging.

“When students hear explosions, fear bullets and stay in shaky tents, education cannot happen. I saw how little children cry when they hear the sounds of heavy gunfire,” he said.

Providing students with a safe environment is the priority, Abdulkarim said.

“Once that is achieved, we can try to accommodate students in functioning schools or create alternative centres so that students can continue to receive education,” he added.

Afrah al-Humaiqani, a sociologist in Aden, said the recent hostilities in different parts of Yemen risk denying thousands of students access to education, which she warned could contribute to creating a “new illiterate generation” in the country.

However, reducing the impact of this crisis is possible, and the Yemeni government and international organisations can cooperate and coordinate to address it, al-Humaiqani told Al Jazeera.

“There is a need for safe camps where students can feel secure,” she said. “This can be followed by the provision of teachers and textbooks, programmes to address learning loss, and provide psychosocial support for children.”