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Instead of going to school, 15-year-old Harith Mansour spends his days twisting chicken necks, plucking and packing fresh meat for customers at a small shop in Sanaa, Yemen's capital.
He is one of an unknown number of children in this country who work to support their families as the balance of six years of war pushes the country ever further into poverty and hunger.
"I had to accept this job because my father cannot cover the household expenses by himself ... There is not enough for school or other things," explains Mansour, who stopped studying in eighth grade.
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In another neighborhood of the capital, Abdo Muhammad Jamales, also 15 years old and dressed in sandals and a shirt, cuts long steel bars in the street to use in concrete structures. Fighting in his hometown of Hodeidah, western Yemen, forced his parents and eight siblings to settle in a camp for displaced people two years ago. With his father ill and unable to work, Jamales and his brother moved to Sanaa. The teenager earns between 3,000 and 4,000 riyals (10-13 euros) a day, but more than half goes to food and accommodation, leaving little left to send home. “Before I studied and sat down and, thank God, everything was fine: food and drink were easy. But now it's difficult ... A sack of flour costs between 18,000 and 19,000 riyals (about 60 euros). Before it cost between 5,000 and 8,000 ”, he laments.
Price inflation in a war-hit economy is one of the main drivers of Yemen's persistent hunger crisis. The cost of a minimum food basket has risen more than 20% this year, according to UN data. Before the last conflict broke out, in late 2014, the country was working with the United Nations to reduce child labor. The minimum age to work was 14 and 18 for hazardous work. But the children's organization UNICEF assures in its report
Education interrupted: impact of the conflict on the education of children in Yemen
that the war has multiplied the number of children out of school to two million from the 890,000 who were no longer in classrooms before the war and warns that, without urgent support, the number could rise to six million.
Of the children who do not attend school, more than 400,000 have been expelled from them directly by the war: up to 2,507 educational centers have been damaged, used as shelters by internally displaced persons or occupied by armed groups.
It is estimated that 8.1 million minors need educational assistance, when in 2014 this figure was 1.1 million.
It is this situation (the war) that led me to work ... This job gives us our bread every day
Zakaria Naguib, 16, works in a metal workshop in Sanaa
Poverty is also getting worse.
According to the most recent data, almost half of all Yemenis lived in poverty in 2014. It is now estimated that national poverty rates have risen to 80%.
UNICEF estimates that at least eight out of 10 children live in families that do not have enough income to meet their basic needs.
With family budgets strained, girls marry earlier and boys are recruited as soldiers when they are not sent to work.
More than 3,600 minors have been recruited to participate in armed conflicts in the last six years, according to the UN.
Zakaria Naguib, 16, started working in a metal workshop in Sanaa two years ago.
"It is this situation (the war) that led me to work ... This job gives us our bread every day," says Naguib, as sparks of ground steel fly around his unprotected face.
The worst humanitarian situation in the world
Yemen remains the country with the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. Two-thirds of the population (20.7 million people in total) need urgent humanitarian assistance due to multiple emergencies such as conflicts, pandemics and natural disasters. Children continue to be the main victims of this terrible crisis, and 11.3 million are in need of some kind of humanitarian aid or protection assistance. Currently, more than four million displaced Yemenis live in more than 1,500 camps and need urgent support to survive. The security situation remains unpredictable and dire, with humanitarian access to vulnerable populations, including for the provision of basic education services, severely restricted.
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