“Hear our voices, we’re sick of war"

SANAA – For the first time in Yemen’s four-year-long war a group of teenagers have written their own calls for peace, saying adults have failed to protect them. “Hear our voices. We are children just like any other children, just like your children. We don’t want to live in a warzone anymore, we are sick of it.’

Next week it will be exactly four years since the escalation of the conflict in Yemen – having lived through violence, hunger and restrictions, in their Peace Resolution the children demand an end to the war, the right to education, free movement and freedom from fear.

Yemen is the largest humanitarian crisis on earth, where 24 million people - 80% of the population - need humanitarian assistance and protection, and almost 10 million people are one step away from starvation. Around 10 million children don’t have access to adequate healthcare, one in three girls and one in four boys don’t go to school, and 1,5 million children fled their homes to escape hunger and violence.

Under the supervision of trained child protection officers, the children were asked to write how they feel about the conflict in Yemen. Their honest responses give a unique insight into a child’s experience of war.

Children’s Peace Resolution excerpts (read the full version here):
“When we walk, we are scared, when we sleep, we are scared. When we play, we are scared. We don’t want to live in a warzone anymore, we are sick of it…We are innocent. We are children just like any other children, just like your children.

“We want to be cared for like any other child. We want an education. We want the chance to go to school. We want to draw, eat, laugh and play. We have the right to learn and be looked after, to grow up and pursue our dreams.”

Amani* is 13 years old:
“My father’s salary hasn’t been paid for four years…Before, my father used to bring us fruits and desserts when he came home, now he comes back home empty handed. He is not able to afford them anymore…We have been deprived of many things because of this war…The war has worn us down, bombing and destruction have worn us down.”

Maha* is 13 years old. She describes the moment her father was injured:
“Where my dad worked was hit by three of four rockets and he was injured, deep gashes were opened in his cheek and from his forehead to his eye by thick glass shards…When the rockets hit, he was thrown with the broken glass and his office was turned upside down by the force of the explosion…I was deeply affected by my father’s injury and (his) wounds. When we went to the hospital, I used to see wounded people, like a guy with a gash in his abdomen and his guts spilling out.”

Sukaina Sharafuddin, aid worker for Save the Children, said:
“Children in Yemen don't often get the opportunity to speak about their feelings – they're too busy just trying to survive. These children have grown up very quickly from seeing so much suffering all around them. Nearly all the children expressed their disappointment at being forgotten by the world. They couldn’t understand why children elsewhere get to be properly fed and clothed and sleep safely at night. I’m a parent and this is not the life I would wish on my child and I think parents everywhere would agree.”

Tamer Kirolos, Save the Children’s country director in Yemen:
“We believe only words, not weapons, can bring peace to Yemen’s children. And the children have told us very clearly that they expect better from the international community, by whom they feel abandoned and neglected. Children are dying every day because of the lack or denial of food, a lack of medicines, because of violence. Around 240,000 people are living through catastrophic levels of hunger and are barely surviving - half of them children hovering on the brink of starvation.

“Children feel the destruction around them and they see what is needed on the ground. Peace, food, education.

“And now they’re asking for it. We are publishing this Peace Resolution today because children’s voices are rarely considered. The authors of this resolution want the world to know how they feel, to understand their dire circumstances but also to remind everyone of a simple fact: children are children everywhere and deserve the best possible chance in life.” 

As 80 per cent of the Yemeni population requires some sort of humanitarian assistance with millions of children on the brink of starvation, it’s more urgent than ever for world leaders to put children front and centre of its foreign, defence and aid policies. That means calling out allies when they violate humanitarian law, suspending arms sales to warring parties that are killing children in Yemen, and implementing a clear strategy to protect children and their families caught up in conflict.

NOTES TO EDITORS:

• The children aged 13-18 gathered in Sanaa in December 2018 in one of Save the Children’s Child-Friendly Spaces (CFS). CFS’s are protected areas set up by Save the Children staff, together with members of the local community. They provide children with a safe space where they can play, learn, express themselves and socialise. These spaces are especially designed to meet the unique needs of children in conflict, many of whom have faced distressing experiences. Children are also offered important psychosocial support to help them overcome distressing or traumatic experiences.
• Save the Children estimates some 85,000 children under five in Yemen may have died from extreme hunger since the escalation of the conflict in April 2015. Others died while fleeing the violence in Hodeidah or other hotbeds. Currently, one in ten children have been forced to flee their homes and some two million children are out of school.
• Some 1780 schools were either destroyed or damaged, and 23 schools are being used by armed groups. Another 167 schools are used as shelters for families who had to flee their homes.