Inside The Humanitarian Crisis For Children In Yemen After UK Airstrikes

inews

Shannon Orcutt, Save The Children's Yemen Country Director, tells i's Global Affairs Correspondent that children are 'paying the price' for the humanitarian crisis in Yemen   'Last year we found that 47% of all child casualties in Yemen were as a result of landmines', she says.   ⬇️ Follow i for the best in news and analysis. ⬇️ https://inews.co.uk/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theipaper Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theipaper/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/theipaper TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@theipaper LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-i-paper/

Transcript

00:00 And last year we found that 47% of all child casualties in Yemen

00:05 were as a result of landmines and other explosive ordnance.

00:10 Humanitarian needs remain exceptionally high.

00:13 And unfortunately, that has come at a time where humanitarian funding has really been decreasing.

00:19 And we're having massive food cuts.

00:22 In the north of Yemen, the WFP had to suspend food assistance.

00:27 That was going to 9.5 million Yemenis in December.

00:31 And it's unclear when, if that will resume.

00:35 And so it's a really unfortunate time for the folks in Yemen.

00:38 And really, as we were entering 2024, there was another hopeful feeling

00:44 because we had had the announcement that parties were really

00:48 looking to re-establish this roadmap to peace.

00:52 And we were feeling like, okay, maybe we're going to head in this trajectory

00:56 of having dialogue and we were thinking, how can we integrate children's voices into this?

01:01 And soon thereafter, we saw the Red Sea escalations

01:04 really develop further and the airstrikes began.

01:08 And so it feels like when I talk to my colleagues,

01:11 they're feeling some of this trauma after years of war

01:17 and feeling like the hope that they had is really, really being squashed.

01:22 And they're seeing everything that's happening in Gaza.

01:24 And they're seeing and they're really thinking about everything they have experienced.

01:28 And they know that every time they're hearing bombings, just the fear really increasing

01:33 and bringing back all of this trauma to the surface.

01:38 When families don't have access to food at a minimum,

01:42 they're likely to bring their children out of school

01:45 because they can't necessarily afford the school fees.

01:48 And so that results in children not being able to reach education.

01:52 And in the worst case, being forced into child labor and being forced to work at a very young age

01:59 just to be able to provide for their families and help them survive.

02:03 So there's huge risks that come onto the lives of children

02:07 when you have kind of this economic deterioration.

02:12 Sometimes it is working in factories.

02:14 Sometimes it is working in the streets.

02:16 Sometimes it's working in the fields and doing more farming.

02:19 And one huge risk that we see when that happens,

02:22 when children are working in agricultural settings or maybe collecting scrap metal,

02:27 is they're falling victim to landmines.

02:29 And last year, we found that 47% of all child casualties in Yemen

02:36 were as a result of landmines and other explosive ordnance.

02:40 And so children are really paying the price emotionally and physically.

02:46 And from these remnants of war that are left behind,

02:50 just trying to earn enough to survive, to feed themselves, to feed their families.

02:54 [MUSIC]

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